Stay
by Iffy Jr
Summary: Loki/Tony. SEQUEL to Words. "Tony thought it was weird enough that he was getting married—HIM, Tony fucking Stark!—but pregnancy? That's just too much. Lordy, what's a man to do? Especially a man like him. Loki can't even give him any pointers because he was a damn horse when HE was pregnant…" A story in which we go aaall around Tony's pregnancy and then some! COMPLETE.
1. Part I, Chapter 1

A/N's (sorry they're like eight million years long just go with it they're important okay yeah): So, about that sequel I said I was going to write for my FrostIron fic _Words_… Here she blows! (Basically if you haven't read that one yet you really shouldn't be reading this one so you should go do that it's okay it's not too long it won't bite too hard :P) Like I said in the author's notes of the end of that fic, this is going to have mpreg in it. I was going to put some Lady!Loki in to make that work buuut my ideas got around that so I'm not going to. Also, because I decided that it's just too much work, I'm pretending that Loki's never had any of his kids or whatever other than Sleipnir. Like, they don't even exist. Yeah.

I'm just really psyched for writing this because I really want to write something where Tony has to cope with having kids. I WOULD write a Stony one where Peter is their son but I'd totally botch it so decided against it. Instead I did a kind of crossover thing in which Richard Parker's (Spiderman's dad) is actually going to be Pepper's boyfriend, so _they're_ going to have Peter! Idk I got bored okay. So yeah, this is what I came up with! Enjoy :)

P.S. Any Asgardian's I made up are actually Old Norse names. Haha.  
P.P.S. I know all of you guys complimented my skills in keeping them in character in the last fic, but I thought I didn't do all that great at it. So, here again, I'm pretty sure I didn't do all that hot at keeping them…well, themselves. Tony and Loki, at least. Especially Loki. But hey! That's what sequels are, right? Where people change? Whatever.  
P.P.P.S. I mention Twilight in here, okay? That's what I based a very specific (and small, but large at the same time…whatever) part of their honeymoon off of. But if you hate Twilight you'll hard even notice it, okay? I mean, they talk about it for like a few paragraphs, but then it's done forever. So keep oooon reading!

P.P.P.P.S. Loki has the ability to pop in and out of the different realms, and I never really give an explanation as to how he can without the Tesseract. Basically I don't have an idea so just go with it.

**EDIT**: Aaand because this is mpreg...well, I'm 16 and a virgin, so basically my experiences are random stuff I found off the internet. Like, Tony gets an x-ray because he's sick and that's how they see the baby which is totally not possible because it's in like the first month. Yeah just shit like that because I have no idea what I'm doing. But people still like it, from what I've heard, so hopefully you can get past all of that! Yeah. Sorry I'm in a really bad mood writing this cause I have this on ao3 too and someone just RAGGED on me about all of this stuff so I feel like shit about it and ugh okay I'm sorry yeah have fun.

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**Disclaimer**: None of the characters in this story are mine. They strictly belong to Marvel and whoever else has helped create the Avengers or the characters of Asgard. Oh and now Spiderman and— Oh fuck this it's fanfiction why would you even write a disclaimer anyway everybody knows it's not yours.

**Full**** Summary**: Loki/Tony. Sequel to Words, w/ mpreg. "Tony thought it was weird enough that he was getting married—HIM, Tony fucking Stark!—but pregnancy? That's just too much. Lordy, what's a man to do? Especially a man like him. Loki can't even give him any pointers because he was a damn horse when HE was pregnant. But he'll do what he can, of course. And so will the others, as soon as the happy couple pulls together enough courage to actually tell them… But then the really fun part comes in… Telling the rest of the world. Yeah, lots of fun. A story in which we go aaall around Tony's pregnancy, from how it happened, during it, the birth, and an epilogue of the child at twenty-one years of age. COMPLETE.  
[**Website summary**: Loki/Tony. Sequel to Words, w/ mpreg. "Tony thought it was weird enough that he was getting married—HIM, Tony fucking Stark!—but pregnancy? That's just too much. Lordy, what's a man to do? Especially a man like him. Loki can't even give him any pointers because he was a damn horse when HE was pregnant…" A story in which we go aaall around Tony's pregnancy, from how it happened to an epilogue of the child at age twenty-one. COMPLETE.]

**Pairing**: (_Main_:) Tony/Loki; (_Others_:) Clint/Natasha, Thor/Jane, Richard Parker/Pepper; (_Pairings w/ OC's you don't know but will later in the story_:) Indio/Daniela, Steve/Lidia—y ou know Steve but you don't know the chick so just go with it  
**Status**: Complete  
**Rating**: M  
**Warning**: slash, m/m pairing; smut; strong language; mpreg

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**Part I: Foreshadowing at its Finest**

**Part I, Chapter1**

**(Day 269 [Exactly 2 Months after Day 210], on the 23rd of March)**

"I think I'm going to be sick."

Steve rolls his eyes as he does some last touch-ups to Tony's hair. "Tony Stark, nervous for his own wedding?"

"Shut up."

"Oh, Tony, you're _fine_," Pepper says, adjusting the rose on both Tony's and Steve's classic suits. "You know you've been waiting for this for two whole months, Loki even longer. Your boyfriend—your fiancé—your whatever is waiting for you just outside of this door, and then you're going to walk a few yards to the next door before he walks you down the aisle just like—"

"Shut up, shut _up_, neither of you are _helping_."

"Hey, come on," Steve says. "At least you're not in a white dress with Thor walking you down it in place of Howard."

Tony rolls his eyes. It being a male/male wedding they've had to mix things up a bit, which means instead of one of them walking down the aisle with a bouquet of flowers, they simply walk up together. He hasn't seen his groom yet, though…so not only is it unknown what Loki's wearing, it makes Tony even _more_ nervous.

But suddenly the door opens to reveal both Bruce and Clint, and Tony can't help but laugh at the hawk dressed up as a penguin.

"Where's Nat?" Tony asks, wiping a tear from his eye.

"She's with Loki," Bruce says, attempting to smooth down his hair.

Clint snorts, reaching up to help him as it twings out. "She's with your fiancé," he says to Tony. "And _wow_. Tony, I have never seen someone so nervous. Even she can't get the guy to calm down. I mean…shit, man, are _you_ nervous?"

Steve chuckles. "Yeah, he definitely is."

"What, should you guys not actually be going through with it? I mean, if you're so nervous you're about to throw up…"

Tony snorts at the absurdity of the idea, but he doesn't actually get to say anything because, at that precise moment, the door flies open again to reveal Loki and Natasha. Tony doesn't even have time to truly look at Loki before he's got him pinned to the wall and is kissing him, hands pressed against the wall on both sides of Tony's head.

Tony hears Natasha give the same sigh that she's given him after all this time, but he knows that it's meant for not him, but Loki. They share sighs, now.

"He refused to sit still," she says to Steve, Pepper, Clint, and Bruce. "So he came in here."

Steve chuckles. "Newlyweds."

Clint snorts. "They're not even married yet! They still have ten minutes before walking down the aisle!"

"Where's Thor?" Bruce asks.

"He's already standing up front," Pepper says. "And in the front row of Loki's side are Sif, Fandral, Hogun, Volstagg, Odin, and Frigga."

"And somewhere in the back," Natasha says, "there's a servant holding steady an eight-legged _horse_ that Thor brought along."

Loki finally pulls away from Tony to let him breathe, glaring at Natasha. "You leave my son out of this."

She rolls her eyes, throwing her arms up. "I give up. Everybody _out_."

The three men in their nice suits not getting married file out laughing, making their way out to stand up front. As the two women leave, on the other hand, they're not dressed in suits, but very differently. Natasha is in a dark blue dress with her wild red hair that Tony practically had to force her to wear (the dress, not her hair), and Pepper is in the exact same dress except in the color of rose red. Her ginger hair actually fits quite nicely with it.

"What?" Loki snaps at Tony's divided attention, going back to kissing him.

"Geez, what are you, pregnant?" Tony says, laughing against Loki's lips.

Loki chuckles, pulling away again. "Obviously not. I just…gods, Tony, I love you."

Tony smiles up at him. "I damn well hope so, because I love you too. Not to mention we're getting _married_ in three minutes. Kiss me again.

And Loki does, hard against the wall until Tony is hot all over his body and he knows there's a fresh hicky on his neck and—

"We're two minutes late," Loki whispers, pulling away. He grabs Tony's hand and pulls him through the door, both men jogging to the next door that they'll take to walk down the aisle. The music is already playing.

"Pepper is going to kill us both," Tony groans quietly, fixing Loki's hair. The god looks beautiful in a suit, a red rose tucked in to match the others around them. Tony expected some big Asgardian outfit, but nope. Just a regular homosexual American wedding.

"She can't do anything if she can't catch us," Loki teases, fixing Tony up as well. "Gods, you're beautiful." With one last kiss, Tony and Loki push both doors open like true celebrities, arms linked as they walk slowly down the aisle.

_My reputation continues_, Tony thinks, well aware that Loki can hear it.

"_Which one?"_ his fiancé thinks back.

_I'm late again. Which, hey, when am I not late? But for my OWN wedding? Damn, Lo'. I've stooped kinda low, don'chyuh think?_ And then he has to force himself not to laugh, because he's just used Loki's nickname twice, only one of them in the right nickname context. "Lo'" and "low".

"_Don't make me kiss you right here, Tone. Its bad enough we were late. Ooh, don't look now, angry Pepper at two o'clock."_

But of course Tony looks anyway, giving his maid of honor (best woman, right hand chick, secretary?) a smirk. She and Natasha are the only two women up there, Pepper the first on Tony's side and Natasha on Loki's. Then the men on Tony's side are simply Steve and Clint, and on Loki's side are Thor and Bruce. They weren't placed in any specific way other than that there is one female and two males on each side.

And Pepper really does look angry, the bouquet of blue roses (magically blue) in her hands. Natasha's holding red roses, of course. Nobody really gets the red and blue color scheme except those up front, but it's supposed to be the red of Tony's Iron Man suit and the blue of Loki's true form.

When the happy couple finally stands up front, the pastor (_not_ Fury, which Clint has joked about far too many times, but a man older than dirt from Asgard with a name that Tony never managed to learn; he still calls Loki and Thor's first Xena, Jackie Chan, Robin Hood, and Little John, after all) saying a prayer in both English and Old Norse before allowing everybody with chairs to sit.

_He's not going to switch back and forth the whole time, is he?_ Tony thinks.

"_Oh TONY,"_ Loki scolds into his head. _"You couldn't even pay attention to your own wedding rehearsal?"_

_Oh come on, we were talking like this through the whole thing! You know I can't multitask when it comes to you._

Loki smiles brightly, sneaking a glance down at Tony. _"Yes, I do, and I love it."_

The Asgardian pastor drones on and on about being faithful and true and a million other things, but Tony hardly hears any of it because he just keeps talking to Loki via mind-powers. But Loki finally gives him a mental elbow to pay attention, because this is it. The big moment.

Tony thinks he's going to be sick. He's not thinking about backing out—nooo, not at all. He's just nervous. What is he, Tony Stark, doing getting _married_ in the middle of New York? Lordy, what a change. He's been with Loki a little over seven months, now, and that's all from day one. They waited two months for the actual wedding (Tony had to make everything just right so that there were a _very _limited amount of reporters around and the rest strictly friends and family) to take place after Loki asked him to marry him in the fifth month. And all those two months Tony was banging his head against a wall for a reason how Loki had gotten so far into him that he actually _wanted_ to get married. He never did find much of a perfect reason, either. So Tony Stark told himself: "So what, you fell in love with an ex-suicidal god that didn't talk and can cook salmon. What's so bad about that?" And that was the real question, and the answer was _nothing_.

And here Tony is now, about to pee his pants at the prospect.

Loki and Tony unlink arms and turn to each other, Tony's right hand going in Loki's and Loki's left going in Tony's.

"Do you, Loki Laufeyson," the pastor says, "take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, in sickness and in health, for rich or for poor, as long as you both shall live?"

Loki actually has the audacity to smirk. "I do." (_"—what I want,"_ he tacks on at the end in Tony's head, and Tony gives the smallest of snorts that he knows everybody heard no matter how hard he tried to hold it all in).

The pastor nods and turns to Tony. "And do you, Tony Stark, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, for better or for worse, in happiness and in pain, for as long as you both shall live?"

Tony gives an even better smirk back, because two can play at that game, and Pepper is _so_ going to kill him before he can get off to his honeymoon destination in Hawaii. "I do," he says.

A few more words and the pastor shuts the book that he's reading from. "I now pronounce you both husbands," he says. "You may kiss."

Just likes always, Tony pushes up on his tiptoes and throws his arms around Loki's neck as the taller man wraps his arms tight around Tony's waist. And they kiss in front of all of the onlookers, because that's just how it's supposed to be. No more secrets, no more being quiet about love.

And the crowd erupts in cheers, and even before they're done kissing they're separated by one of Thor's massive bear hugs. Which of course makes them both burst into laughter, and Loki pats his brother on the head as he smiles before the blonde sets them back down.

That's when the congratulations begin. Tony and Loki stand up front as everyone lines to up to thank them for being invited and all that jazz, and after they speak to the newlyweds they go off to the hall where the after-marriage feast is set out. Tony even got a chocolate fountain to dip strawberries and marshmallows in.

Sif and Frigga kiss both men on the cheek, Volstagg gives them a hug _almost_ as bearish as Thor's, Fandral makes a joke about there not being anymore competition with the ladies, and Hogun simply gives the only smile Tony has ever seen the man give. Then there's Odin, who pats both of them happily on the back before all of the six Asgardian's that came (aside from the pastor) continue on to the feast. And there are others, obviously. Rhodey (who Tony hasn't seen in ages because he had to move away for his job), Happy (who's moved on to bigger and better things now that Tony's put him there), Fury and Agent Hill, everyone who was standing up with them, reporters (questions, questions, too man questions), a few others Pepper must have invited, and finally…well, Loki pulls Tony back to Sleipnir.

"Heyuh, Slei'," Loki says, wrapping his arms around his sons neck. "Meet your step-dad!"

The horse whinnies, nuzzling up against Tony.

It's weird—yeah, it's _weird_—but Tony pushes the feeling aside and pets the horse, weaving his fingers through its mane. "Hey, boy," he says, smiling brightly at him. "Nice seeing you again."

Loki smiles, burying his face in the crook of Sleipnir's neck. "Ready to go back?"

Sleipnir hooves the ground, and Loki looks up at Tony. "Give me four seconds."

Even as Tony is nodding, Loki, Slei', and the servant shimmer away. And, exactly four seconds later, Loki is back by himself.

"Hungry?" he asks, holding his arm out.

Tony smiles, linking his own arm with Loki's. "Of _course_." Loki kisses him on the forehead, and then they're off to the feast like everybody else.

**XxX**

Everything is finally over, and Tony and Loki are standing in front of Pepper, who's absolutely freaking out about Tony being completely unreachable for an entire twelve days.

"Pepper, please," Tony says, putting his hands on her shoulders. "It's a honeymoon. This is _normal_, being gone. Don't hurt yourself, okay?"

She just pouts her bottom lip out.

"We'll be back before you know it," Loki says, pulling Tony's hands off of her. "We'll be safe and all that, too. He'll love it."

"Hey, yeah," Tony says, crossing his arms. "I don't actually know where we're going, yet. Just that it's in Hawaii somewhere."

Loki and Pepper both smirk at him.

"You boys have fun," she says, suddenly not freaking out anymore, taking a step back. "Don't stay up too late."

"Come on, Pep," Tony says, wrapping an arm around Loki's waist. "You know I never go to bed at a decent hour. Don't even suggest that. Is our stuff already there?"

Even as Pepper is nodding, Loki is shimmering them away.

When Tony opens his eyes, the first thing he notices is the heat. Next the surroundings: they're outside, the sun is high, there's an ocean straight in front of them, and two palm trees with a large hammock strung up. Then he turns around to see a cabin-like structure, logs of white with flowers and a sort of ivy draped all around it.

"What time is it here?" he asks.

"There's a five hour difference from here and New York. While it's nine in the evening over there"—(they had a generally late wedding)—"it's only four in the afternoon here."

"And our things?"

"Already inside and unpacked. The empty suitcases are sitting out in the bedroom closet."

Tony smiles up at his…_husband_. "What are we going to do first?"

Loki smiles back. "First, a tour." He pulls Tony inside for said event, motioning to rooms as they go. The front door leads into a living room, which sits beside an open kitchen. Past the kitchen is a dining room, and then back past the living room is a hallway with four doors that lead into all a bathroom, laundry room, home theater, and of course the bedroom. The color scheme of the bedroom is white and a pale blue, and inside is all of a four-poster king sized bed, a large dresser, and a desk in the corner. The floor is a cream colored shag carpet, there's a sliding door that leads out to a second hammock and beyond, and two doors that lead into a closet and a huge bathroom.

Tony smiles up at him. "And _now_ what?"

"Weeell…" Loki averts his eyes and walks over to the patio door. "I have an idea…"

Tony walks over and wraps his arms around him from behind, resting his chin up on Loki's shoulder. "Yes?" he asks. He's always liked Loki's ideas. Well…since day one, anyway. Taking over the world wasn't exactly one of Tony's favorites, nor was being thrown out of a window.

"Yeah, um…you know those books you told me not to read?"

Tony frowns. "You mean all the ones with legends of you and your brother?"

"No, the, uh…the Twilight Saga."

Tony groans. "Loki, you _didn't_! Those are for sex-deprived teenage girls!"

Loki gives Tony a guilty grin. "Oh, come now. Who do you think I am, God of Listening Well? You know all too well that when somebody tells me not to do something I'm _going_ to do it. Besides, _you_ read them."

"Yeah, because I was in the hospital for two weeks with nothing better to do back when they came out! It was that or playing chess with Pepper for three hours straight."

"Well, either way, I read them a couple of weeks ago, and I got an idea from the fourth book…"

"You'll have to refresh me on what happens. I don't remember all that well."

"Well, its Edward and Bella's honeymoon, and they went somewhere really hot so she wouldn't get vampire frostbite."

Tony chuckles. "Heh, vampire frostbite. It's like a vampire bite, but frosty!"

Loki looks down at him with an arched eyebrow.

"Sorry, I'm not funny. Please continue."

"Right. I, uh, wanted to…kind of do the same thing."

Tony blinks up at him. "Drink my blood? What?"

Loki sighs, looking away. "Um, no."

So Tony slides around until he's in front of Loki, and lordy it is _hot_ in this suit. "Tell me."

Loki bites the inside of his cheek, and his words come out in a speedy string all at once: "IwanttofuckyouinmyJotunform."

Tony blinks up at him. "I know getting married is supposed to open up this brilliant insight where I always know exactly what you're staying, but you're going to have to repeat that."

Loki sighs, and emeralds lock hard with little circular chocolates. "I want to be in my Jotun form when we sleep together."

The words hit Tony like a rush of air, and for a moment he can't breathe. "Really?" he's finally able to ask.

Loki back peddles like it's an art form: "Well, I mean, if you want me to. It really will be freezing cold and I don't want to hurt you so maybe it's not that good of an idea at al—"

Tony pushes up on his toes and silences Loki with a kiss. "Yes," he breathes a moment later. "Please."

Loki smiles down at him. "I love you. Let's get out of these clothes; it's sweltering."

Tony all too happily complies, and a moment later they're lying naked in the bed, mouths mashing fervently. Loki is still pale, hands and knees straddling Tony to stay upright as both men rut their groins against the others. Tony's hands are tracing themselves over the planes of Loki's chest, making their way around to grip onto the peach halves of Loki's ass.

"Ready?" Loki whispers, pulling away from Tony's mouth, eyes cautious.

"I've always been ready," Tony says, pulling his hands away to weave into Loki's hair.

The first thing that changes are his eyes, but Tony's seen them red far more often than the one time he saw him blue, so it's not as alarming. Then starts his skin, beginning from his scalp and washing down like raindrops on a window in a dark blue color that nearly contrasts the pale blue of the room. When the blue gets to about Loki's ribs, that's when the designs come in. A blue-grey color (that Tony can't tell if it's darker or lighter than the other blue), spreading across in patterns of arcs and dots and even a few zigzags.

Tony's eyes follow the blue all the way down to Loki's toes. He places his hands against Loki's chest and pushes back, cold seeping directly in his skin as they sit up, Loki directly on his legs. His eyes roam over the skin, taking in all of the patterns and the colors (because, you know, the entire _two_ different colors are _so_ overwhelming) and how absolutely cold it is. He feels like he's sitting one half in a freezer (the part touching Loki) and the other half in a sauna (the half free to be pelted with the heat of Hawaii; he doesn't even know what island he's on).

When he looks up at Loki's eyes again, the man looks like he's about to cry. So Tony reaches up to hold a hand behind his neck and pull him down for a kiss. It's cold, and the tongue that slips into Tony's mouth is like sucking on straight ice. But it turns him on because this is his husband and Tony loves him and that is _never_ going to change, no matter _what_ species he is.

"Whatever horrible things you or anyone else has ever told yourself about this form," he whispers against cold lips, "stop it right now. You're beautiful. _Beautiful_. Do you understand me?"

Loki nods (though there's not really much of an understanding in it at all; more just doing what makes Tony happy) and leans in to go right back to kissing Tony. Tony lets it go, though, pulling Loki down on top of him. He can't help but hiss slightly at the cold, and Loki starts to pull away.

"No," he whispers, holding Loki harder against him, lips against the corner of the blue man's mouth (he has a feeling he'll get clocked in the head if he ever thinks or speaks of him directly as a Smurf; maybe he'll luck out and Loki just doesn't know about them). "I want this."

"What if I really do give you frostbite, though?" Loki whispers back, arching his back as Tony wraps his legs around his waist. "You could lose an entire arm."

"Preposterous," Tony says, rocking slightly to get Loki moving again.

It works, and Loki presses Tony hard into the mattress as he starts to kiss him again. Their teeth mash, but they don't care. Tony is just thrilled at this, and slowly but surely he's becoming completely used to the cold, even welcoming it in the heat of being inside a Hawaiian place without any air-conditioning on. Their cocks rub hard against each other, and Tony's not sure if he can take this much longer.

"Lordy, Lo', fuck me" he breathes, pulling just enough away from Loki's mouth.

"Are you sure I won't freeze your ass shut?"

"_Loki_."

He laughs huskily, unwrapping Tony's legs from his waist. "Alright, alright, keep your shirt off." Tony laughs, and Loki suddenly _flips_ backwards out of the bed, disappearing into the bathroom. Tony is confused until he comes back out in all his blue glory, cock hard between his legs, holding up a bottle. "I forgot to put this by the bed," he says, diving back in beside Tony, crawling up to straddle his lap.

"That was…wow," Tony says. "I can only do a back flip when I'm in my suit or I've been punched backwards while boxing."

Loki shrugs. "It's a god thing. Now shut up." He kisses Tony hard, pushing him down onto his back at the same time Tony hears the _snick_ of the cap opening on the bottle of lube. And a moment later he hisses again, because there's a freezing cold, lubed finger probing at his entrance as Loki reaches behind them both.

But Loki just keeps kissing him, drowning out the hisses and any other moans or sounds that Tony makes as he stretches him. His fingers swirl and scissor their way inside, all the way until Tony is stretched with four wonderful, freezing cold fingers. That's when Loki finally scoots back until he's not actually sitting on top of Tony anymore, slicking his cock before swinging Tony's legs up onto his shoulders.

If Tony wasn't so turned on he would laugh. He didn't used to be near as flexible as he is right now. Loki's done wonders to his body, even out of the bedroom. Since day eight and to now, they've done all sorts of things. Loki let Tony teach him how to box, and they watched every single movie and episode of the Stark Trek's. Well…nearly every single one. Tony's never been able to get himself to start the newest series. He just doesn't want to start. But Loki taught him all sorts of things as well. He's done all sorts of things like yoga and gymnastics (that one in which he only attempted before failing miserably as Loki did perfect flips and cartwheels around his body) and zumba and hell, he even got into some karate/martial arts. And of course there have been the sex position experiments, and because of that and everything else he's about three-hundred times more flexible, which makes the simple act of having his legs thrown over Loki's shoulders as easy as creating new elements to keep himself alive.

"It's going to be cold, love," Loki says, positioning himself. "I suggest bracing yourself."

Tony does, and it's a good thing that he does, because when Loki pushes in all at once, Tony actually cries out a bit. He can't help it. But that's alright, because Loki kisses him again and doesn't move, and that almost makes him completely forget about the piece of ice stuck up his ass.

"_Move_," Tony breathes a minute later, arms tight around Loki's neck.

Loki does, and it hurts for just a second. But it doesn't sting because he's not stretched; no, it stings because it's cold as hell. Not that hell is cold, but that's not the point. Loki moves slowly, in and out until the freezing pain is turned to beautiful cold pleasure. Tony moans into his husbands (lordy, that's still weird to think about) mouth as he's kissed, forcing himself to move as Loki is, pushing back as Loki is pushing in.

They move completely as one a few moments later, kissing going to absolute zero as they simply moan in pleasure. And they're eventually there, Tony's back arching up as Loki's arches back. Tony releases onto both of their stomachs and the surrounding sheets hardly seconds before Loki releases inside of him, and _shit_ it's like liquid oxygen seeping into his pours, because that shit is _cold_. And something about it feels…different. Maybe it's because they're married now, or maybe it's just the drop in temperature, but something is different.

And it makes everything all the more pleasurable. And Tony loves it.

"Do you have any idea how much I love you?" Loki whispers, body splayed out across Tony's as one of his hands plays with Tony's hair.

"No," Tony says, smiling up at him. "Tell me."

"Too much."

"Well _that_ was an anticlimactic answer."

"More than Pepper loves you."

"Now _that_ is just downright impossible."

Loki smirks. "I'm your husband and even I'm admitting that I fully agree with you at that statement. I love you more than…more than how much I hate this form of mine."

Tony blinks up at him. "Regardless to how much that is, what did I tell you about those thoughts?"

"Mmm…I don't remember."

Tony breathes a laugh. "I'm too tired for this. For arguing with you. God of fucking Mischief, there's no way I'm going to win. What do you want to do now?"

"Now? Take a nap. Something you don't know, it actually takes more energy to do things when I'm…well, a Frost Giant. Even when I'm using my magic to disguise myself, something about it makes everything easier to do. I don't know what it is and I never want to know, but that's how it works."

Tony frowns. "Yeah, question. All these grey-blue marks that you've got. Do you know what they mean? Like, is it a coming of age thing or something? I don't know."

Loki shrugs, resting his chin on his hand that's splayed out on Tony's chest, just above the arc reactor so that his body blocks out the blue light in the bright room. "I never got around to asking. I killed my father, you know."

Tony blinks at him. "I…actually, no, I didn't know that. Why did you…yeah you should probably tell me that story."

Loki closes his eyes, letting out a soft sigh. "Long story."

"Dude, we're on our honeymoon. We have _plenty_ of time."

"Alright, alright, keep your shirt off."

Tony laughs. "You've said that twice, you know. I mean, since we've been here."

"Have I?"

"Yeah, the first time was back when you got up to get the lube, I'm pretty sure."

"Yeah, well, I meant it. You know about the whole…the 'thing' back in Asgard, right? Before I fell into that abyss of stars that look like a thousand eyes all disappointed in me?"

"Yeah, all of us Avengers were debriefed on the whole deal when Thor showed up and was able to tell it to us."

"Great, less explaining to do. You know about the whole letting them in as a trick so that I could just kill them off, then?"

"Right."

"That's about it. I was trying to prove to the people that I had grown up and wasn't the monster that they knew I was. I didn't care about my father. I had spoke with him all of twice, because telling him that I just killed him definitely doesn't count—and not just because he wasn't able to answer me before he died."

"You just…killed him?"

"Let me ask you something. You find out tomorrow that your father was not Howard Stark. Your father is a man by the name of…" He opens his eyes. "Craig Peterson."

"_Craig. Peterson_?"

"First thing that came to my head. Craig walks in and you have the chance to kill him to prove to the entire world that you're not a narcissistic, self-harming…" But he trails off, sighing. "I don't even know why I'm trying with this. You don't give a damn what people think about you. Just…go with it, okay? I kill my father because everybody hated me. I didn't like myself and I wasn't even prone to self-harm then. It is appalling how different we are in that sense, even though we had very terrible fathers. I killed him, I killed him, yes I did. I'm not sorry for my actions and I know I never will be."

Tony snorts, and Loki frowns. "What's so funny?" he asks.

"Nothing, I'm just surprised that you never told me that before we got married."

"You never asked."

Tony smirks. "You know, you are _perfect_ for me, and I hate it."

Loki smiles warmly, his eyes drifting shut again. "After our nap we can cook something up here, alright? Then there's the home theater, and after that we're playing a game of chess."

Tony groans. "I should never have said anything."

"It's either that or Chinese Checkers, and I am very good at that. chess, on the other hand, I've never played before."

"Fine, but you have to stay in this form for the rest of the time we're here."

Loki's eyes snap open, red burning into Tony's soul. "What did you just say?"

"Oh, don't give me that look. We are literally in the middle of nowhere in Hawaii, and I don't even know what _island_ we're on. Nobody is around to see us and you know it. I want you, this, blah yadda blah. I want you to stay this way while we're here. I don't care how cold you are—in fact, I love it. That was exhilarating, and after chess I will definitely be the one having you in this bed."

Loki's eyes drift shut, and from his chest emits a very soft growl. "No."

"Oh, come on. You nodded that you would stop hating this."

"And you said you were too tired to argue with me."

"I lied."

"No."

"But Loook_iii_…"

"Tony, _no_."

"I'll give you a blow job."

His eyes open again. "You're joking. You are bribing your husband on your wedding night with a _blow job_?"

"Come on, I promise it will be better than the last one. You know I've gotten rather good at them."

Loki smirks. "I admit, you are…amazing…when it comes to your tongue. But I will not stay in this form for you."

"Then _I_ won't play chess with you, and I'll make you watch some horrible sitcom when we could be watching the Twilight movies."

"You are killing me."

"Aren't I?"

Loki growls again, but louder this time. "Fuck blow jobs. I want something _bigger_."

Tony sucks in a breath. "Shopping spree in Vegas?"

"We did that already."

"Oh yeah. Paris? New York?"

"_We live in New York_."

"Right, I knew that. An entire list of pranks we could pull on Clint?"

"Tony, honestly, give me something good."

"How about I let you call every single shot for the rest of the honeymoon?"

Loki snorts. "There is no possible way you will keep to that."

"Then you don't have to keep to yours, either. The instant that I flat out refuse to do something that you request you can take your normal form before _forcing_ me to do whatever it is that you want. You know you have the power to do it, and I'm giving you the permission. I just…I want the last day."

Loki's teeth worry a hole into his bottom lip before he leans forward and kisses Tony on the nose. "Deal. Go to bed."

"Good plan. Just one thing."

"Mmm?"

"You are quite literally freezing my tits off."

Loki laughs, rolling over beside Tony. "We'll have to keep a sheet between us while we sleep if you really want to survive through the night."

"Good plan."

And that's how they sleep. All of the blankets pushed to the bottom but two sheets. Tony is beneath them both, and Loki is beneath one of them, snuggled deep into Tony's side just like the cat that he is. And it's still pretty cold, of course, but Tony can deal with that any day.

**XxX**

They wake up a few hours later for dinner, which they take more as just a snack since they already ate back at the wedding. Then comes the movie (they watch two, and Tony has seen them both a million times, but Loki wants them, which means Tony has to listen to him if he wants him to stay in his Jotun form). So they watch Ever After and the Princess Bride. Tony never knew his husband was such a softie for the romances; he would have used it against him ages ago). Tony teaches Loki how to play chess and then gets his ass kicked in the first game, and then Tony rides Loki so hard into the mattress they don't even manage to speak before falling asleep for the rest of the night.

When Tony wakes up the next morning, he wakes up both sweating and freezing. There's still a sheet between him and Loki when they curled up last night, but the cold seeped through a long time ago. He's still blue and still beautiful, and Tony can't help but simply watch him for a while.

His black hair is curling around his face and neck in wisps, easily as long as or longer than Thor's now—especially seeing as though he hasn't cut it at all since day one. He cut it when he was taken back for his punishment, but its grown back out to his shoulders, now. His lashes are soft as his eyelids twitch against his cheeks, soft little snores coming from his mouth and nose. His entire body is curled somewhat into a ball, his arms tucked against his chest and Tony's side. His legs are bent up against Tony's thigh, and his neck is curled around enough that his breath is cold on Tony's shoulder.

Slow as he can, Tony slides out from almost-under his husband and swings out of bed, padding across the rug to use the bathroom. All of his toiletries are set out already (Loki really did mean that everything was put away; what, did he pop Natasha and Pepper over here before the wedding to set everything up to perfection?), and he can't help but to quick brush his teeth before slipping back into the bedroom.

Loki is still asleep, though he must have moved while Tony was up, because now a leg from the knee down is sticking out and his arms are wrapped tightly around his pillow. Tony leans against one of the bed posts and crosses his arms, going back to simply staring at the man before him. He really doesn't understand why he despises the Jotun form so much. Is it just because all of the people he grew up with saw them as monsters?—saw _him_ as a monster? Because Tony would definitely hate it to if that were the case in his own mind. But of course he doesn't see it that way, especially him being completely and totally self-obsessed, among other things. If he was blue he'd instantly sign up for an acting job, because how many movies are out there with blue people? The Smurfs, Megamind, Avatar, and he's sure he could pass as an extraterrestrial Indian or something. That'd be fun.

Loki moves again, and the sheet falls off of him completely as he rolls around. When he stops, though, his entire body stretches out at once. His back arches and his fingers and toes curl and his arms reach above his head before reaching out to grasp at nothing since he knocked his pillow onto the floor. And Tony knows that if he had a tail it would be curling and flicking around and he just can't take it anymore.

So he swings around the post and crawls into the bed, jostling just enough that Loki doesn't go back to being still again. His eyes open lazily, looking up into Tony's. "Morning," he purrs, and Tony does his best not to laugh.

"Good morning to you too," Tony says, curling his fingers before brushing them softly down the side of Loki's face. "Did you sleep well?"

"Better than I used to," he breathes, leaning into Tony's hand. "What about you?"

He shrugs, looking out at the patio. "Well, you know, I've had better."

He looks down to a tiredly smiling Loki. "You sarcastic bastard. Kiss me."

Tony does, absolutely loving the cold that seeps into his sweating body. "Up for some breakfast?"

"After a shower, yes."

"Brilliant idea."

It's a slow shower. So slow they probably clean themselves about a hundred times over because they're in their so longer, and Tony didn't even notice how cold the water had gotten considering that he was already cold enough to begin with. Then Tony whips up some world class, totally burnt scrambled eggs that Loki fixes with a snap of his fingers.

"So, what are we going to do today? I mean, since we're out in the middle of nowhere."

Loki smiles. "Well, _first_ we're going for a swim in the ocean. The beaches are perfectly white sand, no rocks or coral to scrape our feet for…well, there's plenty of space for us. Then Odin gave me permission to pop down a couple of horses, including my son, which we'll be riding across the beach."

Tony snorts. "You're actually a sucker for romantics, you know that? I don't know why you married me. I'm the worst romantic you'll ever meet. I'm sarcastic and a total ass when it comes to romance."

"Actually, you're sarcastic and a total ass even when romance is nowhere to be found. But the point is that I know that all too well, which is why I'm doing all of this. For your benefit. I'm teaching you everything we've never had."

Tony stares at him as he takes a bite of eggs. "Really? Because I thought this was just so you'd stay in that form."

Loki smiles, leaning over to kiss Tony on the forehead. "Don't make this harder than it is, love."

"Yeah, yeah, okay. What are we doing after the horses?"

Loki shrugs. "I haven't gotten that far yet. Have you ever ridden a horse before?"

"Never once."

Loki chuckles, taking the last bite of his eggs. "Good. Another thing to teach you. We'll watch a movie before that, then. Black Beauty. It'll get you in the mood."

"It's not a romance, is it?"

"Oh gods, no. Black Beauty is a horse. He does fall in love with another horse, though, but she dies."

"Oh, yeah, way to give away the plot."

"Like you _care_."

Tony rolls his eyes. "Even I can appreciate a good movie. Will I like it?"

"About as much as you liked the Princess Bride."

"I actually liked that one! Wesley was sarcastic, hilarious, _and_ a liar. He was perfect."

"Okay, as much as you liked Ever After."

"That one was okay. I'll live through this one just as well. Can we have a blow job break during this one, though? I'm still down for that."

Loki smirks, standing up to put their plates away. "Ask me again when we get there."

"Sounds like a plan."

**XxX**

Loki is a god in swim shorts. Of course, he's a god doing anything…but he is just really fucking attractive in swim shorts. They're very Hawaiian, white with the orange flowers that are always on swim shorts (Tony's never really thought about what kind they are). Except he, of course, is making Tony go around in a flashy red Speedo. Tony would be annoyed about it if he didn't know he would probably wear one anyway. He would much rather be in one of those than trunks that stick to your legs when they're wet and just all around aren't comfortable to him.

"I don't swim very well," Tony says, standing in just the right place that the little waves wash up to just his toes. "I never got around to lessons. I just sort of…taught myself."

"That's alright," Loki says, walking backwards right past him. "I swim great. We had lots of pools in Asgard, not to mention the fact that I can change my shape to any sort of water creature I want. Ever swam with a dolphin before?"

Tony snorts, forcing himself to walk after Loki until he's up to his knees. "Maybe later. Right now we'll just swim in our normal bod…ies…" He trails off, looking down at the water around Loki's legs. "It's turning to slush when it hits you."

Loki looks down as well. "Well, would you look at that…? You might not want to swim next to me."

"Hmm, you wish," Tony says, walking past him completely until he's up to his waist. "Aside from the fact that the water is warm here anyway, I am definitely used to being cold."

When he winks, Loki rolls his eyes before going out until he's up to his ribs. "Come swim with me, then." He holds an arm up. "I'll protect you."

Tony takes his hand with a smile, letting Loki pull him into his arms before they wade out until they're feet can't touch the ground. Well…until Tony's can't. Seeing that Loki is far taller than him, he's still touching. That's when he lifts Tony up (it's even easier in the water) so that his legs are around his waist, holding him tight as he kisses him.

Tony just can't get enough of him, but Loki eventually pulls away. "Hold your breath and close your eyes," he says. "I'm dunking us both."

Tony frowns.

"Oh, come now. The point of a swim is to _swim_, and that means getting your whole body wet. Besides, you have to listen to—"

"I know, I know," he mutters, closing his eyes. "Hurry up." He holds his breath when Loki dunks them, blowing bubbles out of his nose. And when Loki pulls back up, he sputters and reaches up to wipe his hands down his face and smooth his hair back. "Wow, I sure wish I had some goggles."

"I have something even better," Loki says, raising one hand up and out of the water. "My magic abilities allow me to see, breathe, and hear underwater just like being out in the air. I can do that for you as well, if you want. That way it won't even be _possible_ for you to drown."

Tony blinks at him. "Really? That's brilliant. Will I have gills or something?"

"On the inside of your throat, yes. Your eyes will also take on a filmy white look, but your actual sight won't suffer anything. Your ears, too, will change. But that will only be when that part of your anatomy is under the water. As soon as the air hits you it will go right back to being normal. You won't even feel it."

"Hit with it, then. I want to see and breathe and whatever just like you."

Loki's hand begins to glow a yellow-ish color, and he presses it to Tony's forehead. (It is appalling how many things like this have been pressed to his forehead. Loki's weird black fire spell, this, something green, and Tony could probably name every color of the rainbow twice with both simple glowing and the fire of Loki's magic. He's had so many experiments done on him it's not even funny. He could fly, once. Without the suit. He could actually fly. Granted, he had giant red and gold butterfly wings, but still.)

When he pulls his hand away, he smiles. "Ready to try it out?"

Tony nods, and they go back underwater. Because he trusts Loki with more of his life, he doesn't go at all cautious. His eyes stay open and he takes a deep breath right away, thrilled that he doesn't choke.

"_See?"_ Loki thinks into his mind.

_Lordy, this is brilliant_, he thinks, pulling Loki's free hand back to where he's holding him at his ass. _We can do anything down here!_

"Exactly. Now let's swim."

They do, Loki teaching Tony to do more than a simply dog paddle.

And after a while Loki really does turn into a dolphin, swimming around and doing flips through the air. And when he goes back to normal he's singing a song that Tony's sure he's heard somewhere before, but he just can't place it. Something about "so long, and thanks for all the fish".

"My skin is all wrinkly," Tony says on the shore, looking down at his fingers.

"Mine too," Loki chuckles, stretched out with his head in Tony's lap. "Feel like another shower?"

"Mmm, not really. How about we just sunbathe in the sand for a while?"

"Sunbathing, yes. In the sand, no. let's go up to the grass."

So that's where they go, and Loki strips down to nothing, because they really are in the middle of nowhere.

"Tony, I have a request," Loki says, sprawled out on his back.

"Yes?" Tony says as he's in the same position about a foot away.

"Can I go back to my human form so I actually get a tan? Because I can't do that in this body."

Tony purses his lips. "And you'll go right back to it?"

"Right."

"Then yes, go ahead."

"Thank you."

"Of course."

They spend the next two hours on the grass in the sun, flipping at strategic moments so both sides of their bodies get equal amounts of sun. They don't talk much; they mostly just lean over to kiss each other at random times and lightly stroke the other's shoulder. But when they do speak it's not anything important. Tony talks about games he used to play as a child, and Loki tells him about the greatest pranks he's ever pulled (all of them on Thor, naturally). And they even make up a story of the old ages, ones with dragons and a prince (Tony) that saves a princess (Loki). Of course Loki didn't want to be the damsel in distress, but after a moment Tony proved to him it was probably best he was and not Tony.

"Well, now that the sun has zapped out all of my energy," Loki says, stretching out like the cat that he is. "Time for horse riding!"

Tony stretches as well, sitting up with a yawn. "What should we wear?"

Loki shrugs, standing up in one fluid motion. "I don't know. Jeans, I suppose."

"It is _way_ too hot for jeans!"

"Fine, you wear khaki shorts and I'll wear basketball shorts."

"I don't even _own_ shorts."

Loki pulls Tony into a standing position, and with a snap of his fingers they're both showered and completely changed, and Loki's body is slowly turning blue again (he must not be able to change instantly). Loki is in black basketball shorts and that's it. Tony, though, a shirt with cut-off sleeves, tennis shoes, and the pink socks that Pepper brought him so many ages ago.

"Why do _you_ get to be half dressed?" Tony asks.

"Because you're an amateur. Come on, down to the beach we go." When they're back on the sand, Loki closes his eyes in concentration and whispers some words under his breath. That's when two horses appear fright in front of them, and if Loki hadn't been grabbed onto by Loki he would have fallen backwards.

"This is Sleipnir's half-brother, Bly," Loki says, motioning to the non-eight-legged horse. Like Slei' he's completely black, except while Slei's eyes are green, Bly's are crystal clear blue. "He's the most gentle one in the stables, and I have a feeling you're going to need a lot of patience here."

"Uh, yeah," Tony says, stepping closer to Loki. Bly is already saddled up, and he's really quite small compared to Slei', but it's still intimidating.

And the training begins. It's a good thing they have plenty of time, too, because it takes forever.

"Wow," Loki says, stretching. "I'm starving. It's three and we haven't had lunch yet. Eat first, ride horses later." He heads towards the cabin/house/whatever.

Tony frowns after him. "But what about the horses?"

Loki flits his wrist without turning back. "They're not going anywhere."

"But maybe they're hungry or at least thirsty after all that practice."

"They know what to do for their own food. Or, at the very least, Slei' does, and that means Bly will follow. They'll be fine."

So Tony jogs after Loki, smiling when the god rummages through the cupboards. "What do you fancy?"

"Lordy, I don't know. I'm not even that hungry. What do we have?"

"Anything we want."

"Does chicken noodle soup count as anything?"

Loki's smirking face appears above the counter, and next follows his hand clomping down a can of said substance. "Do you want to watch me attempt to cook this or can I just snap my fingers?"

"You're the boss."

"Thank the gods."

A single snap and the table is set, glasses of white wine with bowls of chicken noodle soup.

"I'm not sure if I feel posh or like a child."

"And I say, is it too much to ask for both?"

Tony blinks at him, taking a bite of soup. "How in the nine realms and beyond do you have any idea about that quote?"

Loki gives a small smile before ducking his head. "Remember when I admitted out in front of the hospital that I started crushing on you after the banter before I threw you out of the window?"

"Yeah…?"

"Don't let it get to your head, but I had nothing better to do than obsess over you after that. Sif knew of it, I think, even though she had never actually seen you…but she never talked about it and I didn't talk to anyone anyway and I haven't questioned her about it since. Either way, I managed to pull off some intricate spells that let me look back in time and, um…" He trails off, taking a bite of soup. "Learn your history."

Tony burst into laughter. "Loki Stark, you were my _stalker_. Lordy, what all have you seen? You haven't shown anything about that at all! You just let me ramble about my past and…and… Good lord, I've married by stalker." He sighs happily, leaning back in his chair with his glass of wine. "This is brilliant. What all did you see?"

Loki shrugs. "I skipped most of it. Just a few things here and there to get an idea of why you became Iron Man, mostly."

Tony frowns. "Then you knew everything about Yinsen and Obi before I even told you?" He had told Loki all about his capture about a month after he asked him to marry him, and Loki sincerely seemed surprised at everything. That's what Tony gets for marrying the God of Mischief.

Loki nods, looking back up at Tony. "I didn't know what you would say. I mean, knowing you agreed to marry a borderline stalker might have been slightly awkward."

Tony snorts. "_Borderline_?"

"Oh shush and eat, your soup is getting cold."

Tony rolls his eyes, smiling warmly over at his husband. "You amaze me, you know?"

"Yes, I do. Eat. The horses are waiting for us."

When the happy couple makes it back outside, the horses are already waiting for them, Bly still saddled up and Sleipnir staring at Loki like he's the center of the universe.

"Do you guys have telepathic powers or something?" Tony asks as Loki presses a kiss to his son. Damn, that's Tony's step-son, now, isn't it? Lordy, he is never going to get past this.

"Somewhat," Loki says, smiling over at him. "Do you need help getting on?"

Tony scoffs, swinging up onto Bly in one fluid movement. "You taught me well, Mr. Stark. Coming?"

With a smug look that could put even Tony's looks to shame, Loki does a standing back flip, landing gracefully on Sleipnir's back. Sleipnir…what a _name_. "Are _you_ coming?"

They start out walking, Tony getting back into the feel of being on an animal like it's his car. They're galloping eventually, though, racing their way down the beach with wind blowing their hair around. And it's fast enough that Tony's actually having a hard time breathing, but it's a good suffocation. Like being kissed, but not as fun.

They slow eventually, Loki producing bubbles of water to float in front of the horses for them to drink.

Tony breathes out happily, taking in the surroundings. The beach curved ages ago behind a hanging of giant stones, so the cabin is well out of sight. Just rocks and white sand and ocean as far as he can see. And grass, palm trees, and other assortments of vegetation, of course. "I feel so…so…" He flits his wrist. "Active. I never go outside. This honeymoon might actually do a thing of good for me."

Loki smirks over at him, doing a sort of swinging move so that he ends up backwards on his son, back leaning against his neck and legs pulled up, though not all the way to his chest. "Why do you think I chose this place? The last time we went outside to do something was because I threw your favorite wrench out of the window when we were at the Malibu house."

"You know, I actually had to fight off a crab for that," Tony mutters, wishing he had some better moves instead of the awesome Sitting in a Saddle Like a Noob look. And a "hipper" vocabulary. He's pretty sure "noob" went out years ago.

"Yes, I know. It is amazing how in shape you can be when you're always inside. So Pepper and I got together for the perfect place that would have you not only comfortable, but active _out_side. Swimming, riding, and I have a few more ideas of what we can do for the rest of this trip."

"Like?"

Loki smirks. "Have you ever gone surfing before?"

Tony blinks at him. "I don't even have a witty, sarcastic remark for that. No. No, I have never been surfing before, and I've never wanted to try."

"I would press, but something in your voice is really making me want to just leave you alone about it…"

"Yeah, it scares me."

"It _scares_ you?"

"Yes, it scares me. I'm not afraid of heights or small spaces and I'm not even scared of dying—not that I want to; I'm just not scared of it—but I'm afraid of being out there on the waves like that. I don't even go into pools that often. Why do you think I don't swim that well? I'm not scared of water. I'm scared of waves."

"Alright, alright, keep your shirt on. Are you ready to go back, then? Because I actually _can_ surf, and _I'm_ not scared of waves."

"Right, um…when did you even _learn_ how to surf?"

"This isn't the only realm with an ocean, you know. And just because our moon isn't the same as yours doesn't mean we don't have tides or waves."

Tony nods, urging Bly to turn around. "Let's head back, then. I may be scared of it, but I'm down to watch you do it."

Loki smiles, spinning back around so that he's facing forward on Sleipnir. "Good. But I would rather surf at sunset. Have you ever made jewelry before? That's what we'll do first. Just necklaces and things out of shells and shark teeth. Real Hawaiian stuff."

Tony groans. "Do we _have_ to?"

"Yes."

"Alright, alright, let's just get there, let's just get there."

Halfway back (and they went a long ways, too; forty-five minutes is a long time for Tony to be on a horse), Loki a few yards in front of Tony, the Jotun stands. It looks so easy as he swings around so that he can push up onto his feet, hands on his hips like he's simply standing on the beach instead of on the back of a galloping eight-legged horse.

"I hate you," Tony mutters, urging Bly to run up parallel to Sleipnir.

Loki looks down at him, a smile on his lips that somehow isn't a smirk or a smug look or anything. It's just a warm little smile that one sees when you're looking at someone that you love more than anything in the entire world. "Why? Because I've been riding horses my entire life and I just somehow know how to stand up on them without falling over? I'm a god, love."

Tony turns away with a similar smile. "_My_ god."

"Of course."

**XxX**

Tony just can't get over how much of a god Loki is. Just since being here he's shown off completely. He's the most amazing person Tony has _ever_ taken to bed, he swims, he rides horses, he makes Hawaiian jewelry, and he can fucking _surf_.

And that's where Loki is right now. Out on the waves. He just produced a surfboard out of nowhere, and Tony had to physically bite his tongue to keep from asking to take a picture. Because seriously. He's standing there, blue, leaning against his surfboard that's stuck into the sand while he's wearing an anklet of shark teeth and three bracelets of an assortment of shells and other teeth on his left wrist. And he's just so beautiful and Tony can't even handle it.

Of course, Tony ends up falling asleep on the beach. It's warm, it's breezy, the sand is soft and no matter how beautiful Loki is out on the waves, twisting and turning with the water…well, it's been a long day, and Tony Stark is one tired man.

When he wakes up, though, he's still outside. The sun is all the way down, though it's still warm out—except most of him is _freezing_. He realizes why a few seconds later: Loki is spread out across him, the surfboard abandoned beside them.

"Did you sleep well?" Loki whispers, tracing a finger around the arc reactor.

Tony smiles. "Yeah, but I'm damn cold. What's say we go inside?"

"Brilliant idea."

They pop straight into the bedroom, clothes discarded in the floor in seconds.

"I love you," he whispers, suckling lightly at the skin of Tony's neck. "Even though you _did_ fall asleep on me."

"Oh come on," Tony says, pulling Loki's mouth back to his own. "You've put me through a lot today," he says during a breather. "I definitely needed some sleep."

"Yes," Loki says, nipping his way back along Tony's skin. "I know you did. And I'm very glad you got it, because now we can stay up all. Night. Long."

Tony smiles. "And thank the gods for that."


	2. Part I, Chapter 2

**Part I, Chapter 2**

The rest of the honeymoon is basically the same as the first day, simply that they lounge around and exercise all throughout the twelve days that they have (Tony's classifying sex as both lounging _and_ exercise). Loki does throw in a few new things, though, of course. Hammock things, games of catch for old time's sake (Loki's it a couple of times, too), and Tony plays the most intense game of Twister he ever has in his life. Granted, they're his only games, but that's beside the point.

And of course there's the sex…something about being married to each other now, and something about Loki being in his Jotun form, makes it the most amazing sex he's ever had the pleasure of having. It's different every time, and even though Loki is calling the shots he gets to top a few times.

Loki manages to at least get Tony to sit on the surf board and at least _watch_ the waves with him, but he never pushes him to actually get out and surf. And one day Loki even braided his own hair, which was just a _great_ sight for Tony's eyes.

On the morning of the ninth day, though, Tony wakes up screaming.

Loki wakes up instantly, two clones popping up with magic at their fingertips as the real Loki asks what's wrong.

"Just a dream," Tony chokes out. "Just a nightmare. I'm sorry. Put those away, we're fine."

The clones disappear instantly, and Loki pulls Tony into a hug. "Gods, that terrified me. What was it about?"

"Nothing," Tony breathes, wrapping his arms tightly around his husband, welcoming the freezing cold touch of his skin to snap him out of things. "Just…nothing."

"Don't give me that, Tone. If you don't want to talk about it just tell me."

His dream rushes through his mind in one painful flurry. "Okay, I don't want to talk about it."

"I'm sorry," Loki whispers. "I did a lot of things I regrets back then. I killed him because I was killing everyone."

Tony sighs, because of course Loki is reading his thoughts. That's what he gets for marrying an extraterrestrial magician. He holds onto him tighter, biting back tears. "I know. I'm not mad at you for that. I'm just…he was an idiot, but I liked the guy. We hated each other. I love people I hate. Except Justin Hammer. He can go rot in a hole. I just…damn."

Loki pulls him into his lap, pushing his fingers through Tony's hair. "It's odd sensing real feelings inside of you that aren't for me," he says, a thin smile on his lips. "Do you want to visit his grave when we get back?"

Tony snorts. He feels better now. Thank god for love and all of the other feelings it swallows up. "No," he says. "No, I do not. Pepper will have all sorts of things for me to do anyway. She may be CEO, but I still have to do about the same amount of things I always did."

Loki rolls his eyes. "Hardly. And even less now that we're married. I'll be able to sign things for you now. Won't that be fun?"

Tony frowns. "You can do that? No you can't. Can you?"

Loki smirks. "Probably not, but it won't change anything. I've been forging your signature for her for months now."

Tony gives a mock gasp. "You _are_ the monster parents tell their children about at night! Lordy, no wonder I've been so free lately."

"Mmm, yes, we've kept it quiet, she and I. How do you think I answer all of your interview questions involving work related topics?"

"…really? You've read into everything? I just thought you joined Pepper's gossip circle. Do Steve and Natasha still go to the weekly meetings for those?"

Loki laughs, pulling Tony back against him. "Clint's joined as well. It is amazing how observant he truly is."

"Well, he is called Hawkeye, and it's not _just_ for his aim."

"Mmm, yes. Now, are you absolutely sure that you don't want to visit Coulson's grave? Because I'm happy to take you there."

"I'm fine, Lo'. Just because I have a dream about him coming back from the dead and blaming all of us for dying in the first place doesn't mean I'm gonna go apologize to the guy. He's dead, after all. It's not like I can…" Tony trails off, pulling away from Loki again. "…talk to him," he breathes.

Loki frowns. "Are you alright?"

"That's it! Loki, I've got it! Of course, it won't be nearly the same; it will only look like him. Jarvis! Wait, is Jarvis even here?"

"Good _morning_, sir!" Jarvis says cheerily. "So nice of you to finally think of me. I was ordered by your husband and Miss Pott's not to speak unless spoken to or if either of you were in any sort of danger.

Tony smiles up at the ceiling, because he has no idea where the censors are in this place. "Oh _brilliant_. Jarvis, darling, how would you feel if I gave you a holographic form?"

"I'm not sure, sir. Splendid, I suppose."

"Great. I want you to open a new file for when I get home, okay?"

"Of course, sir. And what shall this be titled?"

"Uh…for now call it the hologram operation. I'll change it up when I get the chance. For now…" He takes a deep breath, smiling over at Loki. "For now I'm still on my honeymoon."

Loki blinks at him, obviously because of Tony's brilliant plan. "You must be joking."

"I do not joke when it comes to science, Mr. Stark. I…well, okay, yeah, I do. But that's not the point. The point is I am wide awake and really need to use the bathroom."

Loki grins, flipping out of the bed. "Me first."

Tony laughs, following slowly after him. He brushes his teeth while Loki pees (of course he does take longer to brush), and they switch before rolling back into bed.

"Still wide awake, love?" Loki whispers, pushing himself against Tony's back. Tony feels the hot-cold of Loki's cock growing, and his own goes from "I was just peeing" to rock hard in about two-point-four seconds.

"Of course," he says, rolling over to face the taller man. "Have an idea, do you?"

"Oh, nothing new," Loki breathes, eyes dark with lust as he pulls Tony against him and buries his face in the crook of Tony's neck and shoulder. "Just a honeymoon fuck."

Tony sucks in a pleasured gasp as Loki bites onto the skin of his neck. "Yeah, okay, no more talking."

"Brilliant idea," Loki breathes, pushing Tony onto his back. Keeping his eyes locked dead on Tony's, he leans down and presses his lips to the vein of Tony's cock.

"Wow," Tony says, smiling down at him. "I'm never going to get used to this."

In reply, Loki pushes his tongue through his lips and drags it up the older but totally not older man's shaft. He drags his tongue up from the base to the tip twice more before he grasps the base with his hand and swirls his tongue around the head, watching Tony far too intently. Tony tilts his head back even further and bites his bottom lip _hard_, releasing a moan. Loki continues to lick everywhere between Tony's legs; his cock and his balls and the hair. Right as Tony's arched neck begins to sweat, Loki finally takes him full in the mouth.

Their eyes are locked again. Brown to red. A fire melting chocolate like a dream. It was weird staring into red eyes while being fucked at first, but Tony loves it now. It means something wonderful to him.

Tony wants to keep watching him, but it's just too much, and he drops his head back, letting his eyes roll into the back of his head. He'll never get used to this. Never. Especially not when it's so damn cold. If it wasn't so…so pleasurable; if it didn't turn Tony on so much he'd be in trouble.

His legs spread apart so that his lover has a better access, and his hands come down to tangle their fingers in Loki's hair and grip tightly to his head as Loki continues to bob up and down.

Tony writhes beneath him, and just has he's giving Loki the warning that he's going to come, the Jotun pulls away. And Tony barely gets a whimper out before Loki has crawled up him and sheathed his own entrance onto Tony's cock, body already magically stretched.

It takes about 4 seconds of pumping to push Tony over again, and Loki covers his mouth with a kiss as he releases with a moan into the blue cavern.

"What about you?" Tony breathes as Loki pulls up.

"Turn over," he says huskily, and Tony does just that. There's a slick and cold fingers stretch him swiftly. He'd usually need longer, but seeing that he's had more sex in the last nine days than he can ever remember having in any other nine days, his body stays stretched a lot longer than usual.

When Loki pushes into him, doggy style, Tony is already growing hard again. Sharp nails dig into his back and his hips and even wrap around to his stomach, and Tony welcomes all of it, crying out with moans as he slams back each time to meet his lover in his thrusts.

Loki comes before Tony, hands gripping tightly to his hips as he spills into Tony in a flourish. Tony is right behind him, though, and with a few more pumps he's emptying himself out onto the sheets.

Loki turns Tony over before they collapse into the mess, both men showering each other with tired kisses.

"Love you," Loki whispers, hands caressing Tony wherever they can reach.

"Love you too," Tony says back, taking one of Loki's hands and bringing it up to his hair as his other hand weaves into Loki's other. "How about a shower?"

"What is yes?"

Tony snorts, pushing them both up into a sitting position. "That is the last time I turn I turn the cable on to Jeopardy while we're here—and maybe ever."

Loki smirks. "I don't care if _you_ don't. _I'm_ the one who always has the remote."

After the shower they get all dressed up for the day ahead of them (AKA they put on swim trunks, and because Loki will also be bringing down Slei' and Bly for them to ride he doesn't make Tony wear a Speedo, because horse fur—or is it called hair? Tony has no idea—on bare legs is not as comfortable as Tony wishes), and then they head into the kitchen for breakfast.

"Eggs again?" Tony asks, rummaging through the fridge. He doesn't know _how_ they haven't run out of food yet. Maybe Loki pops out when Tony's asleep to stock up. Or, maybe, Thor pops around with the Tesseract box and does it. Tony wouldn't put it past him.

When Loki doesn't answer, Tony turns around to see him just staring down at his hands like they've sprouted mouths of their own. Which, for some reason, doesn't strike Tony as all that weird. Nothing is very weird to him anymore. He flies around saving the world in a metal suit and is married to a Jotun Frost Giant that surfs and has given birth to an eight-legged horse. There's a reason nothing is weird to him anymore.

"Lo'?" he says, closing the fridge. "Something wrong? New crease on your hand got your attention?"

Loki looks up at him. "That's _exactly_ what has my attention."

Tony frowns, walking over to sit on the edge of the same chair as his husband. "You're kidding."

"No, look, right there," he says, holding a hand out to Tony and pointing to said crease.

"Right, um, much as I love you, I don't actually keep track of the creases on your hands. I don't even keep track of my _own_ creases."

"Well, this wasn't here three days ago. I'm just noticing it now."

"Okay, uh...do you feel any different?"

He nods, dropping his hands back to the table.

"Really? Damn, I didn't mean that either. _How_ do you feel different?"

"I feel...older."

"Older? What's that supposed to mean? You're over two-thousand years older than I am; of course you're older."

"No, I feel _older_. Like...like being here is doing something to me."

"What, I'm weakening you or something with all this sex? Lordy, that's awkward."

"No, no, that's not what I meant. I meant the earth, not _you_. You're not doing anything to me."

Tony arches an eyebrow. "I'm not sure if I should be relieved or insulted."

Loki rolls his eyes. "You know I don't mean it that way either. What I'm trying to say is..." He trails off, eyes widening. "Dear gods! That's it! Tony, I _age_ here. When I'm on earth I _age_. I've never been here for a significant enough amount of time to actually feel its effects, but I age like any normal Midgardian does when I'm down here! Oh my gods, Tony, I'm going to look _old_!"

Tony bursts into laughter, standing back up to walk back over to the fridge. "You have got to be kidding me. You're here only one week straight and you can somehow _feel_ yourself _aging_?"

"Tony, I was still in the body of a sixteen-year-old when I was at least one-thousand," Loki says, standing up as well. "When you age that slowly and are suddenly brought up to pace, you _definitely_ feel it."

"But what about Thor? He hasn't said anything about it."

"He's not here as often as you think, you know. He goes home nearly every night, not to mention some moments during the day. He likes to show Jane around; she's fascinated with all of it."

"So, what, I should develop my own unhealthy adoration to Asgard so you can show me around all the time? Let's just quick pop over there for a day so you stop aging."

Loki's face breaks into a smile. "I wonder…" he muses. "Would you kill me if I suggested saying in Asgard for, oh, let's say…ten years?"

Tony bursts into laughter. "Asgard? _Asgard_? Honey, it's not even going to be my summer home. People need me here. I have a job, I have Pepper, and I have the Avengers. The world will be in uproar without me. I'm Tony fucking Stark!"

"But you're my husband! You have to stay there _some_time. This is technically a long distance relationship. Come move in with me. You can still pop out here whenever you need to."

Tony gives him a look. "_Your_ husband? I'm sorry, how many of us have the last name Laufeyson here?" He spins in a circle. "Yes, thank you, none. You took _my_ last name, meaning you are _my_ husband."

Loki rolls his eyes. "Tony, honestly, we talked about this. We chose Stark because it sounds better, because Laufeyson isn't even a real last name, and because a world without a Stark is like Never Neverland without a Captain Hook. _Not_ because you are the dominant character of the relationship. And, if I'm incorrect…" He spins around as well, mocking Tony. "_I'm_ the one who tops every night."

Tony gives a mock gasp. "Do mine ears deceive me? Are we having our first married _spat_?"

Loki crosses his arms. "If that's what you want to call it, yes. The thing is, we forgot one very important detail. It's called age difference, and it must be sorted out. Because I'm not going to stay here and never anywhere else for the rest of eternity, which means I'm going to go back to incredibly slow aging. You, though, will continue at a regular pace, meaning that when I finally get grey hair you're going to already be grey bones in a six foot hole."

Tony frowns, realizing how right his husband is. "Alright, what does my living in Asgard change about it?"

Loki smiles. "I have a theory that I just thought up about a few seconds ago. If I _do_ age faster here, then maybe you age _slower_ in Asgard. So if you live up there with me for about two weeks your body will kick into Asgardian breathing and, if I'm right, you'll stop aging as quickly. Then you can come back here every once in a while to save the world or sign papers and we'll basically both live forever!"

Tony stares at him, blinking slowly. "I…" It makes sense. It really does. But he's not sure if he even _wants_ to live that long. Live, what, to ten-thousand or whatever? He's not sure if he could do that… "I'm not sure if I should, or even if I could."

Loki smirks, crossing his arms. "Then you're not sure if you shouldn't or couldn't, either."

Tony sighs. That's true, too. "What's it like living a thousand years? I mean…would I be able to do that? I've barely lived _this_ long, let alone to however old you guys get."

Loki shrugs. "Worst case we get bored and come back to live here. Because I'm certainly not going to keep going after you die."

Tony sighs even deeper. "You are impossible. Fine. Two weeks, and then I'm coming back to catch up with everyone."

"And if it works?"

"Then we'll live forever!" Tony says, throwing his arms up. "Or at least until we're bored."

"And if it doesn't?"

"Well, you said yourself that you're not going to keep going after I die. Just stay down here with me most of the time and age like a normal Midgardian."

Loki nods. "Yeah, I guess that's its going to have to be, isn't it?" He chuckles. "You know, if we do it that way, you're technically a bit too old for me. I mean, you're forty-seven, and I have the body of a thirty-one year old. You are _technically_ sixteen years older than I am. That's quite a lot, even for Midgardian terms. At least that's what I've gathered…"

Tony flits his wrist, standing up to get another cup of coffee. "Short hair, don't care."

Loki snorts. "Never say that again, I beg you. Jarvis, sweetheart?"

"Yes, sir?" Jarvis's voice rings through the room.

"Would you be a dear and call the others? Fury and Pepper too, of course. And maybe even Agent Hill, if you'd like. But tell them that we're going to be back early and we'll be calling a meeting and whatnot. Oh, but don't invite Thor. He's up in Asgard anyway."

"Right away, sir," Jarvis says.

"Now what?" Tony says, leaning against the counter.

"Go home, I suppose. But not right away. We can eat breakfast first."

"What about packing?"

"That will be done when I snap my fingers. Jarvis, be a dear and tell us when everyone is in the conference room, please."

"They are all waiting on director Fury, Agent Hill, and Miss Potts at the present moment, sir."

"Oh. Tony, no breakfast. Let's quick get dressed." Loki takes Tony's hand before snapping his fingers to pop them into the bedroom. They each just pull on sweats and t-shirts and Converse, and then Loki snaps his fingers again to pack everything away.

"Ready?" Loki says, wrapping an arm around Tony's waist as his blue slowly washes away to blue once more. The alabaster is actually weird to Tony. He's so used to blues and grays and reds that the emerald eyes are kind of throwing him off.

"Ye—" He cuts off with a frown.

"What? What is it? Did you forget to put on socks?"

"No. Since we're leaving early I don't get my last day to boss you around."

Loki chuckles, bending down to kiss the top of Tony's head. "There's always a day in Asgard, but as soon as the meeting is over I'll take you shopping."

"Yeah, with _my_ money."

"It's not my fault you refuse to let me get a job."

"You don't even want one!"

Loki smirks, pulling Tony tighter against him. "Details, love. Details."

"Hey, what happens to this place?"

"This place?" Loki smiles. "It doesn't exist."

Tony frowns. "It…it what?"

"Doesn't exist. I created it with my own thoughts and powers. That's why it's so perfect."

Tony looks up at him, giving him a _not bad_ sort of look. "Brilliant."

**XxX**

Because Tony just can't help it, he ends up roping Loki into a ten minute kissing frenzy in their bedroom, and ten minutes later they make it to the conference room looking completely like they just spent the last nine days playing chess in their sweats and old t-shirts.

Which was just fine because it took Pepper five more minutes to show up, and Fury ten minutes after that (Hill doesn't come).

"Stark's!" Fury growls, slamming his ass down in the chair at the head of the table. "You brought me here for _what_?"

Loki starts to speak, but Tony waves his hand and thinks, _I got this_, before saying out loud, "I need to stay in Asgard for the next two weeks."

The only people who freak out are Pepper and Steve, but Fury waves them silent. "You brought me all the way over here to tell me you're extending your honeymoon?"

"_This is not just a honeymoon extension_!" Pepper all but screeches. "None of us will be able to reach him for fourteen _more_ days! It's already been nine; he can't be gone any longer! We need him _here_!"

"Actually, Pepper, darling, it's a bit more than a simple elongation of the honeymoon," Loki says, stopping Tony's protests at taking over the explanation by putting a hand over his mouth.

"_Good_," Fury growls, folding his hands and setting them onto the table. "Something important. Hurry up; I have work to do."

"What, a date with Hill?" Clint mutters, causing Natasha to snort slightly.

Fury simply slaps him over the back of the head, causing Tony to snort as well before Loki continues on:

"We're testing to see if the environment will allow him to live as long as I do."

The room silences completely.

"_What_?" Bruce asks quietly.

"We think I'm going to live forever!" Tony says, talking again. He and Loki will just share the weight of words together. They're married, after all.

The room explodes.

"Oh, no, no, no," Fury growls. "There has been _enough_ Stark in the world for _that_."

"If you think that S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to let that happen, you are _sorely_ mistaken, Mr. and Mr. Stark," Natasha growls.

And Tony doesn't understand a single other word that anybody says because it's too loud and they're freaking out too much.

"I don't care _if_ you don't want me to live forever!" Tony yells over all of them, quieting them down some. "Even if you don't want me to, it doesn't' matter. We don't even know if it's going to work. That's why we're going there. To _see_."

"But what if it _does_ work?" Steve and Pepper scream together.

"Then he's basically going to live forever," Loki says. "This morning we found out that, when I'm down here, I age differently. It is our plan that, if we live forever, we'll be alive just as long as he is, because I don't have anything if he's gone. And if the atmosphere doesn't have the same effect on him as it does to me here, then I'm staying down here more often than up there. And…that means that I'll age like any of you. One year at a time instead of…I don't even know what it is. A hundred years is too little. A thousand years is too much. It doesn't matter. What does matter is we don't give a damn how long we live just so long as we're together, but if it means being together longer we're going to take it. We're still on our honeymoon, in a sense, and we're going to take it. So Pepper, if you would be so kind as to pull anything out that my husband needs to sign or look at or even throw away for you, that would be lovely. Because the longer I stay here the more I begin to age like all of you do, and it's the same for him."

The room blinks at him, until Bruce stands. "Tony?" he says quietly.

"Yeah?"

"If you come back, and you're going to live forever, you're not going to retire early, are you? You're going to keep saving the world?"

"That's the plan."

He nods. "Then have fun." And he walks out.

"Yeah, yeah, sounds good," Clint says, standing up. "Have fun in the future and all that." He runs out after Bruce.

Nobody else says anything.

"Lordy, you guys, it's not the end of the world. Just because you all die before me doesn't matter _that_ much, does it? You won't even know. You'll be _dead_."

Pepper covers her mouth and walks out of the room.

"Fuck this," Tony says, rolling his eyes and linking his arm with Loki's. "Steve, Nat, don't hurt yourselves. Fury, don't tell the counsel. Jarvis, I love you and I don't know how I'm going to survive without you."

"I don't know, sir," Jarvis says. "You survived perfectly alright without me the last nine days."

Tony can't help but smile up at the censors. "Goodbye, Jay." He turns to Loki. "Can we go now?"

Loki frowns. "Now? What about shopping? And don't you want to re-pack?"

"No," he says. "I just want to get there. I need to get this over with for more than just us, now. I don't even need to bring clothes. You can just snap your fingers and I'm changed or they're clean. Please?"

Loki rolls his eyes. "Fine. Natasha, please tell Pepper I'm sorry and we'll be back as soon as we can."

She nods, and they're gone in another world. How they pop in and out of worlds without the Tesseract, Tony doesn't know.

"Good lord," Tony says, pulling away from Loki and flopping face-first onto the bed. "I didn't think they'd be _that_ uptight about it. I don't see what's so difficult about it."

"I think the problem is that _you_ don't see how difficult it is," Loki says quietly, sitting Tony beside Tony, dancing his fingers across his back.

Tony turns his head to face him. "What do you mean?"

"You're going to live longer than all of them if this works, Tone. That means watching each and every one of them die. You think it was hard with Phil? Your least favorite of them all? It's going to be far worse with them. Think about it. Steve will die; he's not going to be frozen in time forever. Pepper will die, and you'll have to find somebody new to run your company. Clint and Natasha will die, which means no couples to make fun of. Bruce and Fury and Hill, and maybe…maybe one day even Jarvis will go."

Tony is silent. He doesn't know what to say. Loki is right. Dammit. _Dammit_. "Phil wasn't my least favorite," he finally resorts to saying. "Fury is."

"Of course he is," Loki says, lying down beside Tony so that an arm is draped over his back. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"I love you, Lo'. Stop it."

Tony's glad that Loki's learned to know a losing battle when he sees one. "Do you want to go say hello to Sif and the Warriors Three, or would you rather stay in here?"

"Can't we just go riding? I want to see Bly again."

Loki smiles, kissing him on the forehead. "Actually, I have to go and speak to Odin first. He has to approve of this as well, you know."

"Damn," Tony mutters. "If I'm sleeping when you come back, don't wake me up, okay?"

"Of course not." He kisses Tony again before standing, snapping his fingers to change his clothes into his armor and helmet and all that, before vanishing.

Tony is out cold in seconds.


	3. Part I, Chapter 3

**Part I, Chapter 3**

Mostly, for the first week up in Asgard, Tony and Loki just stay with the horses. Loki is of course dressed properly in his green and leather armor getup, but because Asgardian's don't know what's casual and what's fancy for Midgard's Tony gets to go around in the sweats-old shirt-Converse look. He learns even more about horses with Loki and one of the servants; how to saddle them and all of that, how to jump one without flying off, how to rodeo style, and how to ride bare back. And of course how to take care of them…never in his life did Tony think he would be changing out hay, filling water buckets, or mucking a stall.

So, basically, Tony becomes a horse fanatic since he doesn't have any electronic projects to work on. It hurts, actually, not having Jarvis around and all. But he makes do. Hell, he even has a go in the arena. Of course he got leveled by Sif, but it was still fun. That's when she and the Warriors there would simply teach him more moves to use, usually when Loki was performing his duties, but sometimes he would come and watch, sometimes even help.

So now Tony's a little bit more than a genius billionaire married ex-playboy philanthropist when he's out of the suit since he can actually fight a bit. He'll never come close to Natasha or Clint, but it'll still be fun to challenge them to a boxing match and see their faces when he at least manages to get five minutes into it without getting a bloody nose.

On the ninth day of Tony's fourteen there (what is it with the number nine that hates Tony so much? Is it because he doesn't really like that song by the Beatles? Come on, who actually _does_ like that song?), Tony wakes with a start to Thor lightly shaking both him and Loki into awareness.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't turn you into a snake and cut your head off to hang it on my wall," Loki growls. But even Tony can't take the threat seriously, because Loki is stretching like a cat and yawning as he says it and he's even in one of Tony's button-up long-sleeve thermals so he just all around isn't scary.

"Brother, father has requested you and your husband's presence in the council."

Loki glares up at him. "What _for_?"

"It is about Jotunheim."

Loki's face softens, but it's more apathetic than sympathetic. "We'll be their in twenty minutes."

Thor nods. "Thank you, brother."

As soon as Thor is gone, Loki stretches again. "I hate Frost Giants. Do you want to just stay here and keep sleeping? It's before ten, I'm sure."

"No," Tony says, stretching as well. "I'll go. I should, anyway. Anything about my husband's species is probably something I should hear."

Loki groans. "Please stop referring to my ancestry."

"Oh, come on, I think it's great. And you sure as hell seemed to on our honeymoon."

Loki looks down at him with a smug look. "May I just say that that entire week added heaps onto my being the dominant one of the relationship?"

"Hey now, I never said you weren't. Power shower?"

"And dressing," Loki says, snapping his fingers.

The both shimmer away before appearing by the door, freshly showered and dressed, Tony in his regular sweats-old shirt-Converse look. Tony's wonders what it's like to wear his big bronze antelope helmet thing.

Loki teleports them outside of the council meeting hall, and they push open the doors hand-in-hand. Tony's never actually been to one of these meetings before, but they look a lot different than he pictured. Important Avengers meetings are held around a giant table, headed by Fury. This, on the other hand, is… Well, the room's inhabitance consist of Odin, Thor, two empty spaces before Sif (Tony has finally started calling them by their real names since being up here), the Warriors Three, the pastor who conducted Tony and Loki's wedding (who he now knows is named Ymir), three others that Tony's pretty sure he's never seen before, and then Frigga back around on Odin's left. It's a rectangular table instead of the oval that Tony's used to, and they all look very serious instead of the paper airplanes Clint is usually tossing down from his nest and the box of Pop Tarts that Thor's brought in and the cherry stems that Steve is so innocently tying in his mouth.

"Ah, there they are," Thor says, standing. "My brethren, all of you know Loki, but some of you do not personally know his husband. This is Tony Stark of Midgard."

Tony gives a smile and a wave, sitting down beside Loki after he sides down on Thor's right side.

"And Stark, these are Delling, Lyall, and Quimby."

They nod in greeting, and Tony nods back. Delling looks just as old as Ymir, Lyall about thirty years younger, and…Quimby…looks to be about eighteen. Maybe just seventeen.

Thor nods as well before sitting back down, and then Odin stands. "Early this morning I received a message from Jotunheim. Their current leader tells me that he is not in the permanent place of leadership, as they are still scrambling after the attack on their kingdom. They do not know and I did not tell them that Loki was the one who both attacked their world and killed their king."

Everyone looks directly at Loki, who simply rolls his eyes. "Carry on," he mutters.

"Loki," Odin says slowly. "They know what you are. They want you to be their ruler."

Loki snorts before going absolutely still as he just _stares_ at his father. But he does eventually speak: "You must be joking. Rule the race that I despise? No. No, I refuse. I don't care if that's what I am. I will not."

"Do not refuse without reason, Loki," Odin says sternly. "Go to them. See their kingdom. They need a ruler. Even I agree that it should be you."

Loki had dropped Tony's hand when they sat down, but now he takes it again, squeezing hard (but not hard enough to injure). He does that when he's about to break something. He looks down at Tony.

_It can't be that bad_, Tony thinks, looking directly at his husband.

Loki looks back at him, eyes narrowed. _"Not you too. I will not go! They will rope me in and never let me leave! You know you hate the cold; you do not want to live in a place that is nothing but."_

Tony shrugs. _I'm sure I'd manage._

"_Don't make me hurt you."_

_Oh come on. They're not going to force you to stay there! Just go and see it._

"_Tony, do you not realize what happens if I have to rule my true race? I don't just get to leave as I please. I have to stay there. We can't just pop in and out of there like we do from here to earth."_

Tony blinks at him. "Oh," he says out loud.

And then he and Loki turn to Odin and, at the exact same time say, "No."

Odin sighs, but before he can say anything, Thor does: "Brother, they are your people! You must at least go _see_ them!"

Loki turns to Thor with red eyes—literally. "I do not care if they are my people. I will not rule them, I will not go to them, and I will not give them a reason for my refusal." He turns to Odin, eyes back to their emerald green. "Father," he says, and Tony still knows he's the only one who hears the stain in it. "If they are so set on my ruling them, simply tell them that it was I who deceived them. They'll move on instantly."

"You _know_ that is not wise, Loki," Odin says darkly. "They have already told me that, as soon as they find out who it is that did this, they will not stop at destroying them. They know they are of Asgard, but because they do not know who it is exactly they are keeping their distance. I will simply tell them you have duties to your family."

Tony pipes in: "But what if they play the whole 'we are your family' card since they're all the same race?"

"Then I will tell them that he as long ago accepted his Asgardian ancestry and wishes to keep it as such. Even they are well aware to the dislike of change."

"Exactly," Loki says, standing, long ago having dropped Tony's hand again. "Is that all, father?"

"Yes," he says tiredly. "This council is over. All of you may go."

"Good. If anybody needs me again for more inane propositions I shall be in the stables or the surrounding fields with my son." Loki spins around, his leather jacket flaring out dramatically, and walks swiftly out of the room. Tony sees a shimmer outside of the door and knows that Loki's teleported off.

Tony sighs, wishing more than anything that he had a cup of hot coffee in his hands. "I guess I'll, um, go with him." He quick gets out of there, following after his husband. He's never been to the stables by himself before, so it takes him a few wrong turns to find them. Loki isn't inside, but neither is Sleipnir.

So Tony saddles up a horse (it's not Bly; he's not here right now, though Tony hasn't a clue where he _would_ be) and swings up onto it, petting its neck. She's sleek little thing, body fur (hair? He still doesn't know, miraculously) a maroon-ish color and her mane and tail a cream-ish white.

"Wow," he says, hitching himself in place. "You really make me want a nice big piece of velvet cake." He looks around for a servant, and when he finds one, he says "What's her name?"

"Her name is Eilif, my lord."

Tony frowns. "Damn, something I can't pronounce well. Thank you." Urging the horse on, she carries Tony out of the stable at a walk. As soon as he's decided which way Loki has gone, though, he goes at a run.

He finds Loki in the surrounding field farthest back with Sleipnir, not riding him but simply running alongside him. He's out of his leather and instead in tight pants made of a fabric that's brown-ish green color, an earthy green colored t-shirt with an inch of gold threading around his neck, and the same black suede boots that he always wore on earth before he discovered the luxury of Converse.

Loki doesn't notice him, so Tony just simply watches. The god runs and dives and leaps around with his son, keeping up easy even as he laughs freely. But then his eyes settle on Tony, and his smile falters a moment before he realizes who it actually is.

"Tony!" he calls, running over, Sleipnir right on his heels. "Took you long enough. Slei' and I have been waiting for you! Do you want to go for a ride with us?"

Tony chuckles, glad that he missed the fowl mood Loki was in after the meeting. "Yeah, I'd love to. Just remember I'm not as good as riding a horse as you are, so no running into me."

Loki smirks. "I can fix that. Don't move."

Leaping a few yards back, Loki begins to shimmer. And as his form is completely overtaken, the shimmer begins to grow. And the next thing Tony knows, in Loki's place is a horse the spitting image of Sleipnir, except it only has four legs.

"Oh wow," Tony says, sliding off of Eilif and walking over to the new horse. "You are definitely your son's father."

Loki laughs into his head. _"Yes, Thor said the same thing. Get on."_

Tony blinks at him. "You're not serious."

"_There's been a lot of seriousness lately and people questioning it. Get on, love. I won't let you get hurt."_ Loki bends his front legs to kneel on the ground.

Huffing, Tony climbs on, gripping tightly around Loki's neck. Of course he's ridden bareback, but somehow being on top of his husband is…well, it's weird.

"_Don't be such a child,"_ Loki thinks. _"Hold onto my mane, I'm not going to buck you off if you pull to hard or something. I have an even better pain tolerance as a horse."_

"That is the weirdest thing you have ever said to me before."

Loki chuckles into his head. _"Just hold on."_

Tony does, wrapping his fingers tightly into the mane of Loki's neck. And then Loki turns to Eilif and his son, letting out a whinny that the two other horses happily return.

"_Ready?"_ he thinks.

"As I'll ever be," Tony says.

And off they go, the two other horses going after them. They start out slow enough and ease into it so that Tony is used to it enough by the time they're flying across fields and over hills and through puddles. And Tony actually starts laughing because it's so exhilarating, and after a while he even lets go of Loki's mane (that is so weird to think about) and simply rests his hands against his…what are they…shoulder blades? Whatever, he rests them in front of them and he feels bone and muscles working together like magic as they ride.

They all eventually slow down to a stop, the three horses, dipping their heads to drink from the river. Tony slides off as well, stripping off his shirt before flopping back onto the grass. Loki shimmers back into his usual form and drops down beside Tony, his fingers tracing over his chest and the arc reactor. Sleipnir and Eilif munch at the lush grass.

"You know," Loki says, propping his head up with an elbow, "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were sexually attracted to my horse figure."

Tony snorts, rolling his head to look away. "Yeah right. Unlike you, I'm not into the whole bestiality thing. Keep dreaming, though."

The hand on Loki's chest reaches up to turn Tony's head back to his. "Oh, I will." He bends down for a kiss.

It's a slow kiss, his tongue playing against his teeth. Tony's arms reach up and wrap around Loki's neck, pulling him down on top of him. "I love you," he whispers around Loki's lips.

"Love you back," Loki breathes, crawling over to be over Tony completely. Tony's hands slide slowly underneath Loki's shirt, his hands splaying out over the skin of Loki's hips. Gods, he really loves hip bones. He's not really sure why, but they just really do it for him.

Loki leans away for about two seconds to pull his shirt off before settling back over Tony, his knees holding him up as his hands work to push down Tony's sweats and boxers. They're still going slow; everything is perfect. The sun is up and the grass is soft and Tony's just so in love he simply can't fathom it.

When Loki pulls away from the kiss, Tony leans up as well and pushes his own pants down, pulling open threads where the zipper would be on pants from earth. Loki slicks his fingers with his own saliva before reaching down to trace softly around Tony's entrance, eventually pushing in a single finger. Tony let's his eyes drift shut as Loki adds fingers until there are three, swirling and scissoring around to stretch him just enough.

When Loki pulls all of his fingers out, Tony automatically pushes Loki back into a sitting position and then bends forward so that he can swallow his cock with his mouth. He slicks Loki's length heavily, his eyes staring dreamily up at his partner. Loki's neck arches back and his hands tangle in Tony's hair, but he pushes away eventually, because they're not doing this for blow jobs.

He pushes Tony down onto his back again, swinging his legs over his shoulders as he positions himself. Looking Tony in his eyes, his own green eyes like emerald stars, he pushes slowly into Tony, stretching him more and more until he's buried to the hilt. And after a few more thrusts, the love is still their, but the slowness is gone.

Loki is pounding into Tony like the devil himself, both men moaning probably a lot louder than they should be even though there's nobody around to hear them but the horses.

"Aaahh, Loki, I'm—"

But he's cut of by Loki moaning Tony's name as he empties himself into him, and Tony comes between their bellies all by a second later, moaning incoherently at all of the feelings jumping around inside of him.

Loki cleans them up with a wave of his hand before lying down on top of Tony, kissing him softly again, his tongue wrapping warmly around Tony's. Tony kisses him back, his arms wrapping around his back and rubbing over tight muscle, tracing down Loki's spine.

"I've never had sex by a river with horses around before," Tony breathes when Loki pulls away to pull his cock out of Tony with a soft _pop_. "I've been on a boat in a river before, but never this."

Loki smiles, giving a breathy laugh. "Yeah, the grass is softer here than anywhere else in Asgard."

"It surprises me that there aren't more people around, then," Tony says, arching his back so he can pull his sweats and boxers back up, tucking his cock back inside.

"Not many people know about it," Loki says, doing the same for himself. "We rode a long way to get here. Most people don't have the time and, if they do, they do something else. Volstagg eats, Hogun and Sif spend their lives in the arena, Fandral flirts with women, and Thor visits Jane."

"You know, I'm surprised _they_ haven't gotten married yet."

"Jane is a very traditional girl, and Thor is even more so," Loki says, snatching up Tony's t-shirt before leaning over to slip it over Tony's head. "They will probably wait a few years before the engagement, a few months more before the wedding."

"Do you think they'll stay together, though? I mean, I know zero about their relationship. You seem to know quite a bit."

"Oh yes, I know better than anyone else." He lies back down on the grass, and Tony settles in beside him, one hand on his husband's chest and the other tucked underneath him, his head resting on Loki's shoulder. "I believe they will," he continues. "They seem quite perfect for each other, really. He met her family about a month ago, and they simply adore him as well. And of course Odin and Frigga love her to death, and you should see the way Sif lights up around her. I think she has it in her head to train her for battle as well as she has trained herself."

Tony chuckles. "I've met Jane once, and I'm pretty sure Sif can drop that dream now. She seems more the cuddling in front of a fireplace with hot cocoa kind of girl, running inside during wars to think up some scientific answer to why people are killing each other."

He sees Loki's throat tighten in a smirk. "That's about right, though she would not run from war. She would grab the first gun she could and attempt to kill everyone off to save the others. If she put her heart to it, she could be just as fierce a warrior as Sif. Not as good—no, not even close—but good nonetheless."

When Tony and Loki finally get back to the stables, Tony is back on Eilif and Loki is on his son. They put the two horses away, and Tony can't help but smile when both of them continue nuzzling as he and Loki are walking away.

"Have we become the matchmakers?" Tony asks, throwing both arms around Loki's waist as they walk.

"Good gods, I hope not. Eilif is far too young for him."

"Loki!"

"Oh come now, I'm only joking. I would love a grandchild. It'll be like raising Slei' all over again."

Something about the way Loki says it (or something like that; it's amazing what Loki's words still do to him) triggers something inside of Tony, and he starts thinking just a little too hard on the whole having children deal.

"Don't hurt yourself, love," Loki says, slinging an arm over Tony's shoulder. "I know you're not ready for kids. I know you'll probably _never_ be ready for kids. That's alright with me."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just…what if we could have kids? I mean _us_ actually _have_ kids. The whole male pregnancy thing. Kind of wigs me out, but now the thought is stuck. What would we name him or her? And what would we rather have, a him or a her? Maybe—"

"Gods, Tony, I said not to hurt yourself. One question at a time."

"Boy or girl, then?"

"I already have a boy, so I think I'd like a girl. I wouldn't know how to raise her, though, considering that I'm a man… So I guess I'd rather have a boy. What about you?"

"Boy, definitely. Not just because of your reason, but because _periods_. Good lord. What would we name him?"

Loki chuckles a bit. "Actually, I think I'd name him something that doesn't have to do with either of us whatsoever. None of this horrible naming him after our father's kind of thing—_especially_ since we both hated our fathers."

"Really? Don't like the Howard Laufey Stark idea?"

"Please, don't make me _sick_."

"Yeah, I'd be making myself sick, too. What do you have in mind, then?"

"Well, before I had been to any other realms and found that they had all these names and whatnot, I always sort of liked the names Fenrir and Jörmungandr."

Tony snorts. "Wow, how about something I can pronounce?"

Loki grins down at him. "When I came to earth for the first time, though, I sort of decided that I liked the names Jeffery and Erik. Don't know where Jeffery came from, but Erik Selvig kind of grew on me, I suppose."

Tony smiles up at him. "Yeah? I never really met the guy. Just when he was up on the roof with your machine when I told him to shut it down and he went off about it being too late and stuff."

Loki looks straight forward again with his nose wrinkled up. "No mentioning the Chitauri, alright? Right. What would you name him?"

"Indio Anthony Stark."

Loki looks back down at Tony with a snort. "For someone who doesn't want kids, you've obviously thought about this before."

Tony shrugs. "I get bored sometimes."

"You'd give him your name as a middle name, though? Like your father did you? What if he doesn't like you?"

"Doesn't like me? Yeah right. Everybody likes me. I'm damn near impossible not to like if you get to know me, and there's no way my own son wouldn't get to know me."

"That's true," Loki says, stopping them in the middle of the pathway back to the castle to pull Tony flat against him. "Very true." He kisses him hard on the lips, his arms wrapped around Tony's waist as he lifts him up off the ground by about half a foot.

"You know," Tony breathes when Loki sets him back down, ignoring the realms inhabitance bustling about on the streets beside them, "I'm really glad you call the shots with this whole thing, because I don't think I'd do it very well."

Loki smiles. "Also true."

"One more question, though."

"Mmm?"

"If we did have a kid—which, I mean, we can't, but if we could—would it have four legs and four arms?"

Loki bursts into laughter, pushing Tony back to his side and continuing on their walk. "I guess I can't answer that, can I? Maybe, if we could, they'd have blue all over their body. Your skin color, but my Jotun markings in the same blue that most of my body is? And it will be an absolute genius, where it can put science and magic together one in the same."

"Well hey, if we're making up kids for ourselves, can he have wings, too? That way he can go flying with me."

"Of course, love," Loki says, bending over to kiss the top of his head. "And his eyes will glow acid green like my magic, and he'll have a horses tail and maybe even a third eye to see into the future."

"Lordy, no wonder I don't want kids. Nasty little vermin."

Loki's eyes narrow.

Tony gets the hint. "Except Slei'. Beautiful little—er, big boy. Promise."

Loki smiles again. "Good."

**XxX**

* * *

Smack-middle of the chapter A/N's (because why the hell not?): As I've already stated, Tony does in fact get pregnant. In fact, he is even as he and Loki are having this discussion! So. Foreshadowing at his finest, people. Just go with it!  
Also, the name "Indio"? Yeah, that's the name of Robert Downey Jr.'s son. Definitely will be using that as the child's name in the story XD

* * *

Tony wakes up feeling like absolute hell. His entire body is sweaty and he feels like he's going to…to… Yup.

He dives out of bed to the bathroom (AKA the bedpan, which Tony still hasn't gotten used to. _That's_ why he can't live up here permanently. No running water unless you're at a fucking waterfall.) and empties his stomach into it twice, groaning and rolling onto the floor.

"Awesome," he breathes. Then he realizes that Loki isn't up and asking what's wrong, and he's _always_ up and asking what's wrong when Tony wakes up screaming or puking or whatever (not that he's puked very often, but even the great Tony Stark gets sick sometimes). "Lo'?" he says, pushing slowly into a sitting position. He doesn't feel so bad anymore… What, his body just needed to let a few things go? Whatever.

But the bed is empty. And the room may be big, but it's just one big room, and Loki isn't anywhere. That's when Tony notices the note on Loki's pillow. He clambers slowly up onto the bed, unfolding the Asgardian type paper to see Loki's immaculate and completely not-from-earth style handwriting.

/

_I have to leave for another meeting about Jotunheim. Apparently Odin has brought one of them in to try and persuade me. I don't really want to have to have to tell one of my own kind how much I hate them, but I suppose that's not my fault._

_Also, I would prefer if you didn't come. I don't want you to talk to any of my kind, not to mention how they might turn to try and persuade you to persuade me. I don't know how long I'm going to take… I could be in there for hours. I told Sif to watch out for you, so if you want to just spend the day with her she'd love to. She likes you, thank the Allfather.  
__  
See you as soon as this damn meeting is over. I love you. Sleep warm, sleep well, sleep save._

—_Love, Loki_

_P.S. I just realized. Whether I want to be or not, I'm the prince of Jotunheim. You know what that means? You're one too. Finally, you're being a stuck-up little priss paid off, huh? Still love you._

/

Tony can't help but smile. He can't imagine falling in love with anyone else but Loki, honestly. Well…not honestly. He can actually see himself falling in love with Bruce. But that's just…no, that's weird. He loves Loki, and that's as far as he's ever got. As far as he wants to get.

Tony moves slowly to get dressed, not wanting to make himself puke again. And he'd love to just stay and wait for Loki…but waiting just doesn't sound appealing to him right now. He wants to _move_. What a mood swing.

Sif links her arm around his all but the instant he walks out of the door, a bright warrior's smile on her face. "Did you sleep well, Stark?" she asks, leading him towards the great hall for breakfast. Tony doesn't really think he _should_ have anything to eat, but oh well, he's hungry. Worst case he pukes on the floor.

"No," he says, rubbing his face with his free hand. "I woke up puking. This is the third time. I'm also peeing more, I feel fatter, and my nipples are darker than usual."

She blinks down at him. "Pardon me?"

"Oh good lord, I am so sorry. I must still be half asleep. I did not mean to say all of that to you. Um…um. Breakfast. Shall we?"

She shrugs, leading him in.

That's what Tony likes about Asgardian's. They don't press a subject. Of course Loki does, but he's not technically Asgardian, so he can get away with it. Damn Frost Giants.

**XxX**

_Basically one month later…_

Tony and Loki find out that, yes, Tony will live as long as Loki if he continues to stay up in Asgard. It doesn't even have to be a majority of the time, either, now that the two weeks have changed his "breathing pattern". It's just as long as he's there a certain amount of time in a twenty-four hour period, so he and Loki stay their nights up there.

They also find that, on returning, Pepper is dating a wonderful man by the name of Richard Parker. And Tony really does mean wonderful. Honestly, if he had to choose anybody he would choose him. A brilliant scientist (not quite up there with Tony and Bruce, but you can't have everything) and with a high enough salary that he can take her out to dinner but not be spending all of it on her like an idiot who should really be saving it for a car so he doesn't have to bike everywhere. No, he drives a Mustang and owns a three story house. Perfect for Pepper, all used to Stark Tower and the Avengers Mansion and Tony's place in California. Brilliant.

_And_ Tony and Loki have a very heated discussion, and in the end, Loki agrees to stay in his Jotun form when they're sleeping up in Asgard. Tony gets around to the hologram form for Jarvis, too! And no, there is absolutely no reason that he looks like a combination of Phil and Steve. That just happened to happen. Jarvis doesn't believe him, though, and neither does Loki. Or Clint, Natasha, Bruce, Steve, Pepper, Fury… Not even Agent Hill. Not even Richard fucking Parker, and he doesn't even know who Agent Coulson _is_.

The only problem with the month is that…well…the morning sickness doesn't stop.

He's become really fucking good at waking up and instantly and sprinting around to puke into things. He used to take about five minutes to really take up, but now it's more like five milliseconds.

Loki is behind him as he empties the contents of his stomach into the chamber pot, rubbing his back and soothing him quietly. Of course his hand is freezing since he's in his Jotun form, but somehow Tony's gotten completely used to that now. He just…doesn't get very cold anymore. Which is great, because he used to get cold far too easily. Another reason he and Loki were all destined for each other and shit; he got him used to the elements.

"Tony," Loki says, a second Loki appearing with a towel and a glass of water. "I really think we should take you to see the doctor."

"No," Tony says, downing the glass before wiping his mouth with the towel. "I hate going to doctors. They're so…ugh."

"But, well, it's just…this has been going on for the last month. What if you have something _really_ terrible?"

"Wouldn't you be able to see it, then?"

"I'm _a_ god, Tony. Not _the_ god."

Tony sighs, leaning back into Loki's arms, handing the glass and towel back to the clone Loki to put them away. "Fine. Fine, fine, fine. Tomorrow?"

"Today."

"Nope."

He sighs, pulling Tony further into his arms. "Fine yourself. Think you could eat anything?"

"Maybe a cup of coffee?"

"Maybe another glass of water and some carrots."

"Ugh."

Tony throws on some sweats and Loki shrugs into his green bathrobe before they pop into the mansion to the kitchen for breakfast, Tony leaning far too heavily against his husband.

"What's for breakfast?" Tony asks, rubbing his eyes as he sits down in a chair that Loki pulls out for him.

"WOW!" Steve says at the same time that Bruce falls out of his chair, Clint's jaw drops, and Natasha's eyes widen farther than Tony's ever seen them.

"Lordy," Tony says, looking around for a clock. "I'm not up _that_ early, am I?"

"Um, Tony…" Bruce says. "We're…not looking at you."

Tony frowns, looking over at Loki. That's when he gets it. "Um…honey?" he says.

Loki at the counter getting Tony another water glass when he turns around, the smile on his face melting away when he sees how everybody is looking at him. "What?" he asks. "Is there a hole in my bathrobe?"

"Um, no. You're still…uh…"

"SMALL HEADED MEGAMIND!" Clint yells, entire face lighting up like Thor's lightning with a smile.

Apart from Loki's head, his entire body freezes. He looks down slowly at the parts of him that are showing: a triangle of chest, hands, and from about half his calf and below. Then he looks back up at Tony, panic in his eyes, before he disappears in a blur, Natasha barely diving across the kitchen to catch it. Thankfully she was standing pretty close.

"Damn," Tony says, pushing up from his chair. "I'll be right back." He runs out of the kitchen and down the hall a ways. "Lo', come on, it's okay! They didn't care at all; it was just the first time seeing you that way. I bet if you keep doing it they'll stop noticing!"

Loki appears in front of him, hand in his mouth to bite on his thumb nail. He's not blue anymore. "Didn't you _see_ them?" he asks around the appendage. "They looked _mortified_!"

"What? No they didn't. They looked surprised. Didn't you hear Clint make a joke about it? He doesn't joke about things that mortify him when said thing is around to hear it. And Steve's 'wow' wasn't a mortified one; you could plainly hear how amazed he was."

"No. No, no, and no."

"Fine, I'll go back and ask. You…well, do whatever you want, but when I call for you come back right here, okay?"

He sighs, crossing his arms. "I'll just wait here."

Tony saunters back into the kitchen, everybody looking up at him expectedly. "Alright," he says, "How many of you were actually _scared_ to look at him? I mean you thought he looked somewhat hideous? And don't you dare lie to me. He'll see right through it."

"Only because I don't really like the color blue," Bruce says with the smallest of grins. "Other than that, I think it was really rather fascinating."

"I think it was beautiful!" Steve says too loudly. "I mean, oh, not like that, sorry. I just…sorry. I graduated from college with an art major, okay? Stuff like that just pops out at me."

"_I_ think it was _adorable_," Clint says, pulling an arrow the size of his hand out of his pocket. Then of course he pulls at both ends and it's as long as his arm. That's Clint for yuh, but why he's pulling it out right now is beyond Tony.

"We all know about his Jotun heritage, Tony," Natasha says, swinging her feet onto the table and leaning back in the chair she must have taken when Tony ran out of the kitchen. "We're not afraid of it. It's just the first time we've seen it."

Tony smiles. "Hear that, you big baby?" Tony says, looking up at the ceiling. That's probably not where Loki is, but that just seems…appropriate. "You're beautiful. I told you."

Loki appears in the doorway, arms crossed and skin pale. "It wouldn't have been so bad if I had known what I was _doing_," he mutters. "If I _knew_ I was in that form I could have at least prepared myself."

"How did you _not_ know you were in that form, though?" Clint asks, flinging a strip of bacon at the god.

Loki drops and crouches like a cat, catching it in his mouth. Tony has to force himself not to snort, just like every time. Clint is training Tony's husband like his own pet feline. He's not sure if he should care.

"Tony forced me to wear it around when we were in Hawaii," he says after he finishes eating it. "And I wear it as well when it's just up in our bedroom in Asgard. It's a bit of a kink he's got, being cold during sex, I suppose."

Tony just crosses his arms and grins, leaning against the wall behind him. While Steve and Bruce look away somewhat awkwardly, Clint and Natasha actually smile a bit.

"Well, hey!" Steve says. "At least he's getting used to the cold a bit more! Um, aside from that, though… Loki. You can keep wearing it around, if you want. The more you do, the more we're going to get used to it."

"Hey, I have an idea!" Natasha says, far more excited than she should be. "Make it permanent! Like, you could even go out in public in it! The entire world knows that you're not of this world, so you might as well."

Loki's entire body shudders. "Um, no thank you. I may be able to do it around the mansion, though. Just…not right now." He leans around the doorframe and kisses Tony's ear. "I'm going to shower and have a conversation with Jarvis about the appointment, alright? You stay here and get something into your system that won't come back up."

Tony sighs, turning to kiss Loki back. "Fine, but don't use up all the hot water. I need one, too."

"Tone, honestly, you _know_ I take color showers."

"Oh yeah." He rubs the heels of his palms against his eyes. "Maybe it is too early."

"It's nine, you're fine." Loki walks out.

Tony sighs, going over to pull some baby carrots out of the fridge and pour himself a glass of water. It's early, but he sort of just wants to drink some bourbon. Too bad Loki would decimate him. When he turns around, though, everyone is still staring at him.

"What?" he says, sitting down at the table.

They shift their vision to the food and then back to him before talking all at once:

"_Water_ and _carrots_?" Bruce says. "Even _I_ don't eat _carrots_ for breakfast."

"Appointment for what?" Steve asks. "Are you having trouble breathing or something?"

"It is just amazing how much the _villain_ has changed you," Natasha mutters.

Clint just wrinkles his nose up.

"Lordy, one at a time, please," Tony replies, taking a bite of carrot. "Yes, I'm sick. Sort of. I've had a lot of morning sickness lately. Like, I puke in the morning and nothing else for most of the day except for the fact that I'm a little woozy. It's been going on for the last month, so Loki's setting up a doctor's appointment for tomorrow. He's also making sure I eat right, since scotch is not in fact its own category on the food pyramid. Thankfully I've hardly been drinking anything but water, since everything else just makes me puke."

Natasha and Bruce purse their lips, Clint wrinkles his nose up further, and Steve says, "Men can get morning sickness?"

"_Steve_, no, not like _that_. That's not even possible, good lord. I just meant that I'm puking in the morning, okay? It just seemed the simplest way to explain it."

All of them relax a bit.

"I don't know why the thought even crossed your mind," he mutters, eating another carrot. "I may be married to a Jotun Frost Giant that surfs and makes jewelry out of seashells and shark tee…" He trails off, because that is not helping the weird look factor. "Okay, let me rephrase that. I may be married to a Jotun Frost Giant that is also known as the God of Lies and can use magic and takes cold showers, but that doesn't change the fact that I am in fact a man and do not in fact have a uterus, thank you very much."

"Whatever you say, Tone," Clint says, standing up, done with his food and totally forgetting his arrow on the table. "Whatever you say."

**XxX**

The next day, at the doctor's office, Dr. Coulman (Tony tires not to cringe at the name every time) tells Tony that nothing is wrong that he can see right off except that he needs to get more sleep, and Tony is totally okay with that—and he keeps to himself that he's getting about twice as much since marrying Loki.

"Let's take some x-rays then, shall we?" Coulman says to Tony. "We'll just take a look at your head, neck, and abdomen."

Loki is allowed to sit in a chair in the corner, mostly because he's fucking intimidating, second because he's Mr. fucking Stark.

Tony didn't think x-rays took very long, but Coulman doesn't come back for quite a long time, which doesn't exactly sit well with either of the Stark's.

When Coulman comes back, everything is all wrong. His eyes are wide and his lips are in a tight line, and his skin is pale and kind of clammy looking.

Loki shoots into a standing position. "Whatever it is, tell me first so I can tell him right."

Coulman nods and moves the x-rayers so Tony can sit up, giving Loki a somewhat creeped out look. "I, uh, he—"

"Outside, Doctor," Loki says, ushering him out.

Tony doesn't even try to protest. He knows he'll lose. Not to mention how freaked out he is… Doctor's _never_ lose their composure.

They come back in only a few minutes later, and Tony knows there's something utterly, terribly wrong because of the look on Loki's face. "Leave us," he hisses at Coulman, and the Doctor shuts the door, leaving Tony and Loki by themselves.

"Don't you dare break my life-threatening disease to me _lightly_," Tony growls, holding his arms out to Loki.

His husband just takes his hands and sits on the edge of the doctor's office bed thing instead of giving him a hug. "I honestly think that you'll want me to."

Tony frowns. Yeah. Utterly, terribly wrong. "How long do I have?"

"Roughly eight months."

"Not even a year?" He sinks deeper into the bed. "Damn."

"No, things like this only take nine months altogether."

"Yeah? What kind of things? What do I have?"

"A boy."

Tony blinks at him. "I—excuse me?"

Loki takes a very deep breath. "Tony, love, you're…um…well…"

Tony can't even remember the last time that Loki couldn't say something, and he can't stand it. "Spit it out!"

"You're pregnant."

Tony faints.

**XxX**

Tony only comes to because Loki uses his Jotun powers to ice him awake. He had fallen back onto the pillow of the bed-thing again, but now he sits straight up and grips onto the front of Loki's shirt. "You're kidding. You're the God of Mischief, you have to be kidding."

Loki simply shakes his head that, no, he's not.

Tony groans, dropping back onto the pillow. "Shit. Shit. Loki, shit. I'm not ready for a kid. I can barely even keep DUM-E and U alive. Shit."

Loki soothes him quietly, pushing his fingers through his hair. "That's okay, that's okay. I know. I know you're not ready, and I know that you don't want to keep it. And I don't even think that _I'm_ ready for it. Having a horse is different, because you don't actually have to take care of him, because it's a _horse_. But…but an actual child is not something I saw so early in our future. In fact, I can bet that _you_ didn't see it at all. So…um…" He takes another deep breath, pulling his legs up so that his sitting crisscrossed. "Adoption?"

Tony just sighs, rubbing his hands down his face. "How did this even _happen_. I'm a _man_ for fuck's sake; I don't have a fucking _uterus_. I just told Clint this yesterday! Lordy."

"It's the Jotun form," Loki says, pulling Tony's hands away from his face. "Something about it changes the…chromosomes? I think that's the word. Anyway, it changes the sperm in such a way that it actually alters the body of the person it's released inside of just enough that they can house a child. No, you're not going to grow a vaginal opening overnight. You'll have to get a C-section. I've heard of some cases happening in homosexual Frost Giants, but…gods! I didn't even once think about it happening to _you_! I thought it was something inside of those of us from Jotunheim that mingled with the sperm to even _allow_ the change! I didn't know it was _all_ the sperm! I…fuck." He rubs his own hands down his face. "That's why I suggested adoption instead of abortion. You can't even have one."

Tony groans, and he opens his mouth to say something about not wanting to give it up because now its part of _him_, but Loki starts to shake. Whatever the exact reason it is that he's crying, Tony wraps his arms around him, telling him that it's alright and that they'll think of something and:

"Hey, don't jump to conclusions just yet," he whispers, kissing Loki lightly on the cheek. "If the morning sickness only started a month ago, that means I got…pregnant…about two weeks before that—and don't ask how I know that, please. That means I got pregnant on the first night of our honeymoon, the first time you were in your Jotun form. That gives us seven and a half months, and maybe…well, maybe, in that time, I'll have prepared myself enough so that we can keep it."

Loki looks at him incredulously, but Tony keeps speaking before his husband can say anything:

"I mean, I'm not ready now, and it doesn't look like you are either, but in that time we might be able to pull ourselves together. I mean, both of our father's sucked ass, right? So maybe we'll be the type of parents that try and make up for that and end up being totally awesome. And we'll get Fury to add a whole new room onto the mansion for him, and we'll even put together a name for him. And it will be Godfather Steve and Godmother Natasha, Grandpa Odin and Granny Frigga, Uncle Bruce and Thor, Cousin Clint, Aunty Pepper, Nanny Jarvis, Fury can be the grouchy next-door-neighbor, and Hill can be the wicked stepmother! It'll be great!"

Loki blinks and breathes at him for about three seconds before his face lights up into the brightest smile Tony has ever seen. "Really? You'd try?"

Tony shrugs, realizing that maybe Loki is actually ready for this and, hell, he really wants to keep the child. "Sure, why not? He'll be the smartest, craftiest kid in all the nine realms and beyond."

Loki flings himself against Tony, kissing him hard enough that they both sprawl out onto the bed. Tony laughs before kissing him back, smothering them against each other at the whole idea. He's not sure if he'll be very good at it—and hell, after all those ideas of four arms and legs and wings and grey designs he's still not sure if he _wants_ to be a father or anything remotely close—but…he can sure try.

* * *

End chapter A/N's: Forgive my interpretation of the whole morning sickness thing (or anything else of his being pregnant). Seeing as though I'm still a virgin and that I've never been around anyone at their stages of pregnancy, I don't have much of an idea how it works. So I just sort of looked up stuff on Google. Haha.  
Also, yes, Richard Parker as Pepper's boyfriend showed up in this chapter. Who knows, maybe I'll write the most screwed up Superfamily (family AKA the Avengers, Loki, Pepper, and the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D.) threequel in existence!

Oh, also, yes, this is the end of Part I: Foreshadowing at its Finest! Next up is Part II: 8 Million Extra Pounds, in which Tony and Loki keep a lot of secrets and when those secrets are revealed the Superfamily (same meaning as above) gets ready for the new mouth to feed! Cheers!


	4. Part II, Chapter 1

**Part II: 8 Million Extra Pounds**

**Part II, Chapter 1**

_Seven and a half months pregnant…_

"ANTHONY HOWARD STARK."

Tony looks up from his project with wide eyes to see Loki standing in the doorway. "I—I'm sorry?" Tony says, arching an eyebrow as he sets everything down that he's working with. "Did you just call me Anthony?" He walks over to Loki, making sure not to bump his stomach into anything as he walks up to him. "You didn't even call me Anthony when you proposed to me."

Loki looks like he's about to explode. "What are you _doing_ down here?"

Tony blinks at him once, spins in a circle to survey the room until he's looking back at Loki, and then blinks again. "Working, actually. Remember that mute button? Apparently I already had one that I just so happened to completely forget about. I'm pretty sure Jarvis got Steve to do something, but I don't really want to know. Anyway, I'm in the middle of creating a device that will locate some more vibranium. There has _got_ to more of it around; we just need to find it." He moves a strand of hair out of Loki's face. "Why?"

"Tony, it's _three in the morning_, and you are supposed to be at a meeting with the entire _board of directors_ at nine. You are meant to be _sleeping_, not putting stress on your_self_ and our _child_."

Tony frowns. "That's tomorrow?"

"_Tony_!"

"_What_? I didn't know! Pepper didn't tell me! How the hell was I supposed to remember something like that? You know I still don't listen to anything!"

"Dammit, Tony, it doesn't matter if you knew or not! You shouldn't be down here this late! Your body needs sleep, and it's not just for _you_ anymore! Just because _you_ don't want the baby doesn't mean that you can just keep eating and sleeping and drinking wrong and even—"

"Hey. Hey, hey, hey. Didn't we just have this discussion a month ago? When did I _ever_ say that I didn't want the baby?"

Loki ducks his head, bringing his hand up to chew on his thumb nail. Just like old times. "You talk in your sleep sometimes," he says around the finger.

Tony snorts, reaching over to knock his hand away from his mouth. "I don't even remember dreaming about that. I do, on the other hand, remember agreeing with you that we were going to try about seven months ago, and only one month ago was that nailed down." That was when he told Loki that decided he really did want to keep the baby and fuck the adoption. He wanted to be a dad, and he was going to be the best fucking dad there ever was. They are going to have the most amazing family, including all of the extended version. Godfather's/mothers, and they're going to raise the child to call everybody else aunt, uncle, grandma, grandpa, nanny, etcetera.

Loki looks up, lips pursed. "I wasn't even able to tell from your mind if you meant that when you said it. Did you?"

"Of course I did, that's why I—"

"_Tony_, did you _mean_ it?"

Tony takes a deep breath before looking down at his stomach, hands holding onto it like those stupid ladies who paint their stomachs like watermelons. Of course it's not quite big enough for that, but he's gettin' there. (He's seven months along, after all, and the only reason it's been kept secret from the media is because of confidential trips to the doctor and Loki's magic casting glamors around it in public so that nobody sees it. The only people who know other than the happy couple are Tony's doctors and Jarvis. He'll tell the others…later.) And then he looks back up at Loki—his husband—his protector—his blah, blah, blah everything.

"Yes."

Loki all but flings himself at him, hands gripping onto Tony's face as he pulls him in for a kiss. "I love you," he whispers, dropping a hand to caress Tony's stomach. "Now go the fuck to sleep."

"Hey, watch your language around our son," Tony says, smiling down at Loki's hand. "I don't want him to learn anything bad until he's at least _born_."

"_Tony_."

"Alright, alright, I'm going, I'm going. Right to bed with Anthony, I get it."

Loki smiles, pulling Tony into his arms as they shimmer away, straight into the bed, already dressed up in pajamas (AKA boxers for Tony and sweats without boxers for Loki) to go straight to sleep

It's the bed up in their Asgardian bedroom, because Tony has to spend time up there if he wants to continue aging slowly. He can spend up to two-hundred and eighty-eight hours (six days) on earth without going back to the faster aging, but no more than that. So, whenever they're going to sleep, they just pop into Asgard. The only reason Loki can pop in and out of worlds so freely without the Tesseract is because part of said glowing blue box actually got ingrained into his skin. Tony just figured that out…oh…three months into his pregnancy. Now he's just wondering what _else_ he'll find out with this…thing…going on.

He's not really sure what to think about all of it, really. He's a man who is housing a little child inside of him like a woman. He doesn't even know what the child is going to _look_ like. He sure as hell hopes it doesn't have eight arms and legs, or it is going to be made seriously fun of in school, and Tony can't have that. The x-rays show a human looking child, though, so he's hoping for the best.

**XxX**

The meeting the next morning is boring as hell, but at least Tony's figured out how to walk around in public and eat every single thing in sight without people looking at him weird. They don't know he's carrying eight million extra pounds in his stomach, after all. Lordy.

Loki makes him take a nap when they get home, but Tony only complies when Loki agrees to take it with him. Of course, he wakes up to his husband's hands tracing lazily over his body, and his mouth planting soft kisses over his stomach.

"I can't breathe without you," Loki whispers, kneading fingers against Tony's skin. "I need you. I love you."

Tony breathes a laugh, already fully awake. Yeah, he's good at that now. "You get mad at me for being up at three a.m., you make me takes a nap, and then you wake me up from said nap? At least kiss me."

Loki pulls himself up Tony likes a cat without a backbone (and cats are already flexible enough _with_ a backbone), curling over the bump of Tony's stomach and melding their lips together. His hands splay over the sides of Tony's stomach and his tongue pushes up behind his teeth.

"How about, later tonight," Loki breathes into Tony's mouth, "we go out for dinner?"

Tony purses his lips against Loki's mouth. "I'm not really that hungry."

Loki leans back and all but slams his palm against Tony's forehead. "Are you feeling alright? You don't _feel_ hot."

Tony snorts, pushing Loki's hand away. "Oh, quit it. I'll be hungry by dinner, but right _now_ I'm not. Just because the only time I'm not eating is when I'm in bed doesn't mean I'm not full _some_times."

"You eat in bed all the time, too."

"You know what I mean."

Loki smirks, pushing his fingers through Tony's hair. He's not in his Jotun form right now. Mostly because he's always worried he'll freeze the baby. It's not even possible, because he's not _that_ cold, so Tony is sure to make fun of it for him when he can.

"Jarvis," Loki says without looking up (he isn't integrated into the whole of the Asgardian bedroom, but Tony and Loki each wear a watch that has him, and that's where he's talking to right now), "do you remember the first restaurant Tony took me too? Back during the very first week?"

"I remember everything, sir," Jarvis replies from Loki's watch on the nightstand. "How about reservations for five-thirty. Mrs. Stark will be famished by then."

"Hey!" Tony protests at the jab about his being the wife, but Loki ignores him:

"Yes, lovely, thank you." He kisses Tony on the nose. "In the meantime, how about a long walk? People don't really mob us anymore since we do it so often."

"Yeah, sounds brilliant. But first…" He wraps both arms around his husband's neck. "I know it's more difficult, and probably not as much fun for you, but I am _craving_ a long bout of _pure intimacy_."

Loki grins. "You were last night, too." He kisses Tony hard on the mouth, doing everything perfectly until Tony is hard as granite and mewling with need. "Oh, and by the way," he breathes. "It is _just_ as much fun for me."

Tony grins, gripping onto Loki hips. "Oh good."

**XxX**

"Lordy, it's cold," Tony says, breathing into his hands even though he's wearing gloves.

Loki makes a clicking noise with his tongue to send home the things they just bought at the previous store (he doesn't need to snap, particularly; he just needs to be anywhere within the vicinity of said noise) before opening his arms out to Tony. "Come here, come stay warm in my—"

"Oh thank goodness," Tony breathes, slipping forward and straight into Loki's open trench coat, curling into his side so that his stomach isn't in the way (just because there are glamors doesn't mean it's not still there). Since Loki's a Frost Giant it means he doesn't actually get _cold_, so all he's wearing right now is a Sherlock BBC style coat (yeah, Tony's been watching a lot more TV since getting pregnant, since working in the lab too much makes him sore and tired a lot faster than it used to) that let's open to the early-winter November elements. Tony, on the other hand, is all dressed up in clothes and coats that are magically altered to fit his figure (because he is _not_ going to walk around in fluffy female fraternal tops), a beanie, and two pairs of socks. And of course the glamors are on to make sure that he looks one-hundred percent like a normal human male. Now that Loki hasn't been in his Jotun form, Tony's gone back to always just being cold too easily. If Loki's trying to protect the baby it was probably just better when he was blue all the time.

Loki chuckles as Tony cuddles against his side, and he rests one hand on the top of his head as the other pulls and holds the coat shut around them both. "I was actually going to say my arms," he says, "but this is much more effective. Now the real test: walking. Onward."

It's a lot easier than Loki made it sound, thankfully. Everyone smiles as they walk past them, but only a few of them actually stop and talk. One person asks for Tony's autograph, but Loki politely declines with something about Tony being too busy trying to keep warm. And apparently they're just too cute in that position not to have a picture taken, which meant Tony smiling up at Loki instead of the camera and Loki smiling brightly and squinting against the sudden November sun splitting through the clouds that does nothing at all to warm things up.

And yes, by the time they're at dinner, Tony is absolute famished.

**XxX**

That night, after dinner, after Tony and Loki have popped up into their Asgardian bedroom, Loki heads out to say hello to his son. Tony just stays in the room because he's too tired to go out and do anything more. But he's not too tired that he can actually fall asleep. So he sort of just explores the room a bit. It's amazing how many times he's been up here and never had the idea to really _go through_ anything. Usually because Loki is with him and commanding his full attention, but also because he'd rather just sleep most of the time.

But right now, he's alone, he's not tired, and he's bored. So.

He looks under the bed and in the closet and through draws, and _damn_, he had no idea how big this place actually is. And how many things are hidden away in it! Tony even finds Loki's big-ass leather outfit tucked away in the closet, the helmet sitting up on top of a mannequin head.

He grins, pulling off the cape and tying it around his own neck. Then, with some trouble reaching, he manages to knock the helmet down into his hands. It doesn't fit very well, but it's enough that he can see and it's not falling off. He especially doesn't fit in the boots, so he just sticks to walking around with bare feet.

"IT'S THE GREEN GOAT MAN!" Tony bellows, running around the room as fast as his stomach will let him. "HERE TO SAAAAVE THE DAY!" He starts to do a flip over the bed, but then stops when he realizes that he'll probably just hurt himself doing that—not to mention the child. So instead he just climbs over it, fluffing the cape out like an awkward combination of Batman and Dracula.

"Jarvis, I hope you got pictures."

Tony whirls at Loki's voice, backing up against the wall as his husband stares at him with the most amused expression Tony has ever seen in his entire life.

"Of course, sir," Jarvis says from Tony's watch on the nightstand. Tony just in time catches the miniscule camera he put into it hiding itself back away.

He giggles. Very unmanly of him, but seeing as though he has a womb…well, that's okay. "Hi," he says.

Loki smirks. "I thought you were too tired to go out and do anything more."

"I got bored."

"Well, if _you're_ going to be me…" He snaps his fingers, and the next thing Tony knows, he's facing himself.

"Oh, lordy, no," Tony says as the Loki-Tony starts to advance on him. "I am not going to sleep with myself no matter _who_ I look like. That's just weird. No."

Loki-Tony smirks (and _damn_, Tony never realized how attractive/effective that look is on him) before just turning back into Loki. "Bedtime, then," he chuckles, pulling the helmet lightly off of Tony's head. "Dress-up later."

Tony giggles again, giving Loki a kiss as he unties the cape. "I don't think you would fit into my suit very well."

"All I have to do is change my body shape to yours. Come on, bed's that way."

Tony twirls over to it, burying himself in the blankets as Loki puts his things away. "Did Jarvis actually get pictures?" he asks when Loki is crawling in beside him.

"Yes," Jarvis says with a laugh. "Enough to blackmail you for the next two years, I believe."

Tony grumbles, cuddling up next to his husband. "Lookiii, my AI is being meaaan to meee…"

Loki smiles, pressing a kiss to Tony's forehead. "The faster you go to sleep, the faster I'll deal with him."

"Oh good. G'night, Lo'."

"Goodnight, love."

"Goodnight!" Jarvis says cheerily.

**XxX**

"Hey, Lo', look at this," Tony says, holding out the paper to him. He usually wouldn't read it, but since Steve still gets it and leaves it lying around on the table after his six a.m. breakfasts, he glances through it on occasion.

"What is it?" Loki asks, leaning against the table.

Tony doesn't answer, though, because Loki's looking right now to find out. A picture on the second page is, of course, yesterday's picture of Tony smiling up at Loki like he's the center of the universe, and Loki squinting and smiling at the camera. The caption above it is:

/

_STARK FAMILY ENJOYS A WALK IN THE CHILLY AFTERNOON NOVEMBER SUN_

/

And smaller, underneath:

/

([Pictured above]) Tony Stark cuddled up in the navy blue trench coat of husband and world-known extraterrestrial Loki Laufeyson, seven and a half months ago turned Stark)  
Yesterday, on November 13th, Tony and Loki Stark were spotted on an afternoon walk down the somewhat busy streets of New York. We all know how winter has come generally early this year, but this really pinpoints that, don't you think? And, honestly, _it can't get any better than this._

/

Loki smiles, setting the paper down as he bends to kiss Tony fully on the lips, his hands smoothing themselves over Tony's stomach through the glamor. "I love you," he whispers, smiling against Tony's mouth even through the glamor.

"You know," Tony says, resting his hands over Loki's as they roam. "I think we've actually gotten closer since the whole _fat_ thing began."

Loki smirks. "You think so?"

"I love you too, Lo'."

Tony knows that, when a lot of women get pregnant for the first time, their stomachs don't kick in to getting _huge_ until sometimes the eighth month. Then, when they have their second child, they're already huge at three months because their bodies are all "oh hey I remember this!" Tony, though, is not going to have a second child. Or at least not for another thousand years. So, Tony's male body (including his brain) not being used to this whole thing means that he only looks about four months pregnant right now, and within the next two weeks (into the eighth month) is when he'll _really_ pop out.

So, because Tony is still generally small (and probably because Loki is a cat and doesn't even have a backbone), that's how Loki manages to slide forward and sit himself onto Tony's lap and wrap his painfully long legs around Tony's waist, and _then_ go even further as to grind their groins together.

Tony moans into his husband's mouth, reaching down to slide his hands up into his shirt.

"We're going to have to tell the others, you know," Loki breathes as he trails kisses down Tony's neck.

Tony moans and groans at the same time. "I don't _want_ to…"

"Well I don't either, but seeing as though all but the entire world is going to wonder where we got a child and the doctors already know, we really should. You know Pepper will decimate you if you don't tell her. And Steve. And Natasha. And _everyone else_."

"Tell us what?"

Loki pulls his face away from Tony as they both snap their heads up to see Clint and Bruce in the doorway, Bruce looking like he just stayed up the entire night in the lab and Clint probably just back from his most recent mission. Natasha is out on one right now, Steve is probably still working out, Thor is in New Mexico with Jane working on the whole science/magic Bifrost thing, and Pepper is visiting Happy. Basically, Tony and Loki had the entire mansion to themselves since Bruce is always in the basement and Steve is always in the gym that's towards the top floor (bedrooms are in the middle), so whenever Tony and Loki are out (which is more often than not) they really _did_ have it to themselves, because they definitely did not run into each other.

Honestly, all of the Avengers have been extra boring lately. No Amora or Skurge problems (how they haven't escaped from S.H.I.E.L.D. yet is beyond Tony's comprehension) or creatures breaking through the ozone layer. Just little missions here and there for the master assassins, and the others…well, nothing. Life is quiet, but it's never boring.

"Nothing," Tony and Loki say at the same time. Loki doesn't climb off of Tony, though, because they're married and, out of everyone who ever lives in the mansion, Clint and Bruce probably care the _least_ about their closeness. Well, alright, Natasha might care even less, but still.

"Yeah, right," Clint says, pouring two cups of coffee and handing one to Bruce as he sips from the other.

"You can tell us," Bruce says, sitting down at the table across from them. "You said yourself you were going to have to tell everybody eventually anyway, right?"

Loki looks over at Tony. "You know, it might be better this way. Telling just a few of them at a time. Their reactions won't overwhelm you as much.

Tony sighs, pulling his hands out of Loki's shirt (he actually forgot that they were even there; no wonder his hands were so warm), resting his hands on his own face. "I know, I know. I just…don't want to. It's our little—well, our big secret."

"Well, Jarvis and the doctors know, too. It's not much of a secret, especially because _you_ found out about it _after_ the doctors did, and then even after me—not that I would have had it any other way, of course."

Tony chuckles, remembering the looks on both Mr. Coulman and Loki's faces, and then when he himself fainted.

"Doctors?" Bruce asks as Clint sits down beside him. "What kind of doctors?"

Tony spread his fingers apart just enough to peek out at the two oblivious men. And then he remembers the finest foreshadowing in the history of the world. First when Loki and Tony were talking about baby names, and then when Clint was being all evasive about it being possible for males dating aliens to be pregnant. "Clint knows."

Bruce looks over at Clint, who simply _stares_ at Tony before bursting into laughter for about three seconds and then going absolutely silent again. "You're not serious. You can't be. It's…not possible."

"It is when you're being topped by a small headed Megamind," Loki mutters, wrapping his arms around Tony's neck and leaning against him more.

Clint stares some more before leaping up to puke into the kitchen trash can. "I'm sorry!" he says between hurling. "I just can't—" _Puke_. "—fathom it. In all my years of being on missions I—" _Puke_. "—have never encountered such a thing as this, and my body doesn't—" _Puke_. "—Agree with it." And that's the end of the emptying of his stomach, because he leans back up and gets a drink straight out of the faucet.

"Right…" Bruce says, slowly turning back to Tony and Loki. "Not my kind of doctor, then. Mind being plain and simple with me, Mr. and Mr. Stark?"

Tony nods, his hands removed from his face when Clint started puking. "Uh, on the first day of our honeymoon," he begins, "Loki was in his Jotun form when we slept together. And, apparently, some male Jotun's can… Oh, fuck it. I'm seven and a half months pregnant."

Bruce blinks some more, takes a sip of his coffee, and blinks some more. "Oh," he croaks out. "That explains your diet, increased sleeping habits, and…and a few other things…"

Tony sighs. "You don't have to be professional about this, Bruce. Speak your _mind_."

Bruce takes another sip of coffee. "I don't think you want me to. It might…well, the other guy might come say hi."

"Oh," Tony and Loki say at the same time.

Clint suddenly bursts into laughter. "Okay, okay, Ban, forgive me for a few seconds here." He sits beside him again, staring across at the happy couple. "You're telling us that you're going to…give birth…in a month and a half, and you look like _that_?"

Tony purses his lips. "No, Loki put on glamors."

"Well I gotta see. I just gotta."

Tony turns to Bruce. "I assume you _don't_ want to?"

"No," he says, standing up. "I'm sorry, but no. Later, but not now. I just…going to the lab." He shuffles out.

"For some reason I feel like that's going to be the worst reaction we get," Loki says, smiling over at Tony. "Except maybe Steve."

Tony nods, motioning for him to get off his lap so they can take off the glamors. Loki does, and after he gives Clint a bit of a look, one of his hands envelopes with a green light. He swirls it twice around Tony's stomach—or what Clint sees as the middle of air. But Loki can see through his own glamor, and Tony sort of can…he just sees a silver-ish outline.

His stomach comes into view slowly, and Clint's eyes grow wider and wider. There was also a sort of flamor that made it look like Tony was wearing a shirt that would have fit his thin self, but now it's all altered magically to fit around his stomach.

Clint doesn't puke now, but he does turn kind of green when Loki pushes up the shirt to reveal the actual skin. "Oh," he chokes out, grabbing the cup of coffee that Bruce left and completely downing it. "Oh!" he says a little chirpier. "Well, you still don't look _that_ far along…"

Tony shakes his head, because he is not going to explain it to him. "Have you ever been pregnant? No. So just…whatever. Have you gotten a good look at me yet? Don't you dare tell Natasha. I want everybody to hear it for themselves."

Clint gives a very bad poker face. "Oh, uh, no, of course I won't tell her."

Tony rolls his eyes. "Fine," he mutters, pulling his shirt back down. "But _only_ her, and break it _gently_. I don't want her coming in here like she did when she found out about the first night that Loki spent with me. Did _you_ know she watches the surveillance tapes while just lounging around her room during her free time?"

Clint nods. "Yeah, she used to invite me in to watch it with her. Must have missed that night, but I recall her telling me about it later. And hiding in my nest…"

"For a hawk, you sure are a chicken," Tony says with a chuckle. "Be a dear and make sure Bruce isn't tearing up the lab, would you?"

Clint rolls his eyes, standing up. "I'm not sure if you've gotten cuter since getting married or if you're just annoying."

"Both," Loki says, putting the glamors back on. Who knows if Steve'll walk in?

"It's a pregnant thing. Get out."

"Yeah," he mutters, putting Bruce's cup into the sink. "A pregnant thing."

Tony grins, looking up at Jarvis's censors. "Jarvis, darling?"

The not-Phil/Steve hologram shimmers in. "Yes?"

"It'd be _lovely_ if you could call Steve up for us. I'd like to get the other big boy out of the way as well."

"Of course, sir." He shimmers away.

Steve comes up about ten minutes later looking slightly anxious and a bit confused. "So…Jarvis tells me about…another mouth to feed." He pours a cup of coffee and absolutely _loads_ it with cream and sugar. "It was weird enough when you got _married_, but adoption? I mean…It's a bit much, don't you think? And you're not even a year into the marriage."

Loki pats Tony on the shoulder, which to them means that "you're on your own for this one, love". Loki will confirm it to Natasha, and he'll also tell Fury (maybe Hill too, if she's around. Tony has hardly seen her since he got together with Loki. Maybe she's homophobic…) and those up in Asgard.

"We're not adopting, Steve," Tony says, resting a hand on his stomach through the glamor. Loki pours them each a cup of coffee. "It's a little more…extreme than that."

Steve frowns. "What, you already _have_ adopted? Really?"

"Um, no."

Steve sits down across from him at the table. "Spit it out, Tony—_before_ I have a heart attack, please. I'm old enough to have one of those, you know."

"Steve, I'm seven and a half months pregnant even though I only look four months along and Loki has been making my stomach look flat with magic since it started growing and we want you to be the godfather."

Steve stares at him. "You want to run that all by me again?"

Tony sighs, sipping from his coffee. "Steve," he says slowly. "I've been pregnant for nearly eight months and Loki and I want you to be the godfather when he's born."

Steve squeezes his cup so hard that it explodes in his hand, and Loki of course launches himself in front of Tony at the speed of light so none of the flying shards hit him. He's pretty sure none of them even hit Loki, though.

"One more time," the super soldier whispers, scooping up shards of glass. "Slower."

"Steve," Tony says so slow it's painful. "I. Am. Pregnant."

Steve takes a deep breath, continuing to scoop up glass, just slower. "You're pregnant," he repeats. "I can tell."

Leave it to Captain fucking America—the sweetest, most innocent Avenger—to use sarcasm to cover up his shock. Loki takes off the glamors before Tony even looks over him, and pushing his shirt up is what finally gives them a real reaction from Steve:

"Great balls of flaming Pop Tarts," he groans, dropping all of the glass onto the table and dragging his hands down his face. "You're pregnant. You're a man and you're _pregnant_. How? How is that even remotely _possible_?"

Tony gives a Steve a much better explanation than he gave Clint and Bruce, because he's still his best friend. They don't hang out much anymore, but shit like that happens when you get married. You don't have as much time for just yourself, and especially not within the first few years of the marriage. Not that you really want that much, because you just can't get enough of each other. So Tony gives Steve the entire explanation about how this has happened to some other Jotun homosexual couples in Jotunheim, and instead of Loki's thoughts where he thought it was inside of the one who bottoms, it's the semen that does it. And that, hey, Tony's pregnant now. That it's a boy, that they're going to keep him, and that they still have to tell a couple of the other team members—_and_ that they're going to have to call a press conference, because they're not going to be able to keep something like this a secret.

"Wow," he says, scooping the glass back up before standing to throw it away. Tony catches him give a disgusted look to the trash cans contents, but he doesn't say anything. He grabs a rag to clean up the coffee. "You're going to be a _real_ dad… Pardon my language, but _damn_. That's…um…amazing. It's creepy—I'm sorry, but it just is to me, and probably to whoever puked into the trash as well—but I'm very proud of you. Both of you. I mean, to be able to put yourselves through something like this, and so close to your marriage. Well, I suppose it's not _that_ close, but when you first got pregnant. Are you really going to tell the rest of the world about to it?" He starts to sweep up the glass on the floor.

Tony nods, and Loki kisses him on the top of the head as he sits down beside him. After he got up to get more coffee he never really made it back to his chair. "We'll have to," Tony says. "Everyone will wonder where I got a kid from, and I'm sure someone will somehow get a hold of the number of times I've been to the doctors and/or hospital in the last months after he's born. It's a wonder nobody's asking about it _now_."

Steve nods, dumping the glass and putting the broom away. "Yeah. Yeah, wow. I'm a godfather. I mean, I'd like to be. A boy. Wow. Have you picked out a name yet?"

Tony blinks a couple of times before turning to Loki. "We might have."

Loki blinks back at him. "But which name for the first?"

"Which combination sounds better?"

"With yours first, and I know you agree."

Tony nods, turning back to Steve. "Yes, one that we chose back before we even knew it was possible."

"…well?" Steve says, prompting him to continue.

"Indio Erik Stark."

Steve blinks back and forth between him and Loki. "In-di-o?"

"Just accept that it's not the forties anymore, Cap. Names change."

He shrugs. "Well, he's your baby. I'm going to go…breathe. You know, work out some more, let out my confusion with a few good punches. Who's telling everyone else?"

"Other than Pepper, it's all on me," Loki says. "I'm going to pop in on Fury in a few minutes. Jarvis told me that he's at S.H.I.E.L.D." He holds up his wrist to show off his watch.

Steve chuckles, pushing in his chair. "So, Loki, what's it like being married to the most stuck-up genius billionaire in the world?"

Loki smirks, pushing his fingers through Tony's hair. "Hellish, but manageable. Routine, but exciting. Confusing, but flawless."

Tony blinks a couple of times before turning to his husband. "That sounded completely serious." Loki is of course still the God of Lies, but Tony's gotten pretty good at calling him out on those. Of course he doesn't lie to Tony. He promised, and even after all this time he's kept that promise.

"Well, I'm off!" Steve says, jogging out of the room.

Loki leans forward and presses his nose to Tony's. "You're the second person I've ever loved, Tony, Thor being the first. So you're the only one I've ever _wanted_. You know it's not all rainbows and butterflies, and you know it wouldn't stay that way even if it was. I mean, look at us. Loki, god of Mischief and Lies, once so lost that he could not even find words to speak. And Tony Edward Stark, self-proclaimed genius billionaire ex-playboy philanthropist." He leans forward just enough to ghost his lips over Tony's, and a hand drops down to his stomach, where Tony's stomach is still showing with his shirt pushed up. "And now a child from the alien that never knew his true family and the man that never _wanted_ to know his. What would _you_ call it other than _flawless_?"

Tony gives a sort of _not bad_ face. "No, you're right. I brilliant answer, if I do say so myself."

Loki smiles, pressing his lips against Tony's for a deep kiss full of the excitement and flawlessness and manageability in their lives, where Tony's hands reach up to his husbands face, and the god's own hands reach to caress the skin of Tony's stomach.

But its short lived, because today of all days is when Pepper decides to come back early.

"What's going on here?" she asks quietly, eyes glued to Tony's stomach.

Tony and Loki stare at her for a moment before Tony speaks: "I would say this is not the worst thing you've ever seen in association with me, but it probably is."

She walks forward until she's just inches from Tony's stomach. "Are you _pregnant_?"

Loki quick kisses Tony on the cheek before disappearing, no doubt popping in on Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. Looks like Tony's on his own. Yeah, he'd probably leave too if it was the other way around.

"Um, no?" Tony says, giving Pepper a very bad poker face.

She kneels down slowly, her eyes trailing over the stretched skin. Tentatively, she reaches out a single finger and lightly prods the bump. "Oh, _Tony_. Oh my…oh my…_how_?"

Tony sighs. Yeah, this is why he wanted to just tell everybody at once. So he wouldn't have to repeat himself eight million times. But he tells it again, giving her just as many details as he gave Steve, including a few extra things about the name and the conference calls and whatnot.

Pepper takes a deep breath. "I should have just quit. I should not have ever let you talk me back into this. The stress is…" She shakes her head and slowly sits instead of squats. "Stressful."

Tony smiles down at her. "Just think. You're an aunt!"

She wrinkles her nose up. "I'm not your sister!"

"Well, you would be grandma since you're practically my mother, but that job's already going to Frigga."

She purses her lips. "Indio Erik Stark?"

Tony rolls his eyes. "Jarvis, darling, origins of all three, if you please."

"Of course, sir," Jarvis says, shimmering into the kitchen beside them. "The name 'Indio' is of Spanish origin, its meaning _Indian, indigenous people_. 'Erik' simply means _ruler forever_, and eighty-seven out of every one-thousand boys were named as such in the year two-thousand and seven. 'Stark', your last name, is of German origin, and its meaning is _strong_."

Tony looks down from Jarvis's censors to give Pepper another smile. "See?" he says. "I didn't even make any of it up."

She manages a ghost of a smile. "Aunty Virginia Pepper Parker. Yeah, it sounds alright!"

Tony's eyes manage to drop to the engagement ring on her left hand before he falls off his chair. "You're getting _married_?"

She smiles brightly after making sure that he and his stomach are alright, showing off her ring. "Richard asked me yesterday! That's why I came home early. To tell you!"

Tony unsuccessfully tries to reply.

"And you can't get mad at me, either, because I've been dating him since you're honeymoon and known him for a few months before that, so it's much longer than yours was. Besides, I _know_ you like him."

Tony can't deny any of that. He does rather like Richard Parker, and he already knows how perfect they are together. Flawless, really. Maybe even more so than Tony and Loki. But no, because nobody's better than they are.

""No, no, it's great!" Tony chokes out, cradling his stomach as he sits back up. "I was just surprised, is all. You're…lordy, who's _next_?"

"Thor and Jane, probably. But they'll have a very Asgardian style wedding, unlike your very Midgardian one. Oh, speaking of which… He just _left_ you here to fend me off by your_self_?"

"Oh no, he has it far worse. He's telling Fury."

Pepper's eyes widen. "Oh my. Might we put something on for him to eat? Calm his nerves for when he returns?"

"No, no, I'll just go shower before I hop into the bed for him. A good fuck will calm his nerves just fine."

Pepper hits his leg. "Tony!" she says, exasperated. "Watch your language and context around that stomach of yours! My grandson's first word will _not_ be the _F-word_! Or any other cuss word, for that matter. Am I _clear_?"

Tony smiles up at her (because yeah, she's taller than he is, too). "See? You're doing your job already. Now help me up; it's your fault I'm on the ground."

**XxX**

When Loki pops into the bedroom he's whistling to the tune of a Stevie Wonder song.

"Did it go that badly?" Tony asks, sitting as seductively as he can while being pregnant on the bed.

"Badly?" Loki asks, flitting over to Tony, sitting behind him so that his legs and arms are all but completely surrounding Tony. "No, it went rather wonderful!" There's a squeezing sensation and they appear in the Asgardian bed, Loki's clothes folded up on the floor so that his naked cock is pressed up against Tony's back. "I appreciate the thought for making me feel better, though. I assume you'd like to continue anyway, though? You have been rather…" He reaches a hand down to Tony's cock, and slides a finger over the slit. "Horny…lately…"

Tony moans, dropping his head back to look up at Loki's smiling face. "Tell me how it went first."

Loki grins, kissing Tony painfully slow on the lips before trailing down to his lips. "He laughed a lot," he breathes, darting out his tongue. "And every other word was 'motherfucker'. He actually liked the name, and when I told him that he's going to be Grouchy Next-Door Neighbor Fury he went silent for a few moments before laughing again." He sucks on the skin of Tony's neck for about twenty seconds before speaking again: "And then he told me that he would set up a conference meeting for the rest of the world. We have one week. Think you can manage it?" He trails back up to his mouth.

"I think so," Tony says, reaching his hand down to Loki's hand still around his cock. "You'll be by my side, so it can't be that bad."

Loki gets Tony's hint and starts to move, trailing around to nibble at his ear. "I was by your side before I threw you out of the window, too. Did you know that your blasted machine ran right into me when it was coming after you?"

Tony moans, thanking every god out there that he got the sexiest one out of them all. "I was hoping it would."

He breathes a laugh, pulling his hand away and slowly trailing it up Tony's stomach. "Our son is going to hate us."

"But will he live forever with us?"

"I think that we should keep him at a regular pace until he's old enough to make that decision for himself, actually. Because I do not want the next thousand years to go by with a child not even twenty years old yet."

Tony lets out a laugh, gripping tighter onto Loki's hand to try and bring it back to his cock. "I like your thinking."

"Of course you do," he says, complying with Tony's wishes. "My hand is around your cock. You'll agree with me even if I tell you that I'm going to pull it off and eat it."

Tony manages to think there. "Actually, that sounds kind of…disgusting."

He smirks. "Just testing you."

"Lordly, Loki, just fuck me already."

"Spoken like a true Stark," he breathes.

Instead of the afternoon going by with horrible anticipation of next week, it goes by with ecstasy colored stars.


	5. Part II, Chapter 2

**Part II, Chapter 2**

Beginning chapter A/N: Probably the most awkward interview/conference/whatever that Tony has ever had to attend/give. Probably not at _all_ how it would actually happen, but hey, it's fanfiction for a reason! Enjoy :)

* * *

The day of the conference/interview/whatever comes, and Tony's butterflies are back. Or, you know, it may just be the fact that the baby is kicking a lot. His stomach has definitely grown bigger, even in just the past week, which Tony is totally okay with in the fact that no he won't have to explain the whole "some stomach's don't grow till the eighth month" and blah, blah, blah. Honestly, the whole explanation is just getting tedious. But yes, he'll give it one more time, this time for the whole world to hear.

"I think I'm going to start puking again," Tony whispers into Loki's ear.

They're sitting in chairs up front with Pepper and the other Avengers (including Thor and, actually, Jane, Darcy, and Erik as well), plus a chair with Tony's watch, in which Jarvis has projected himself from, meaning there is in fact a Steve/Phil lovechild sitting beside Tony. Of course they're all there with them. They know very well that Tony needs the support. Which means that, no, neither Fury nor Hill are present. Hill is indeed homophobic (Loki caught a glimpse of her and knew right away), though, so Tony's kind of glad for that.

All of the reports must remember the last time that Tony called a conference, because there are about twice as many people with microphones and video cameras.

"Nonsense," Loki whispers back. "You haven't puked in ages."

"How are you _not_ freaking out? This is worse than how I felt at the wedding."

"Just breathe, love. I can just as easily do most of the talking if you can't take it."

"You know, it bothers me that, since marrying you, I've gotten worse at public speeches."

Loki smirks down at him. "Funny, I've grown the opposite direction. It's your own fault, really, making me do all of it because you're 'too lazy'. Besides, my Asgardian nature did make me a natural public speaker. You, on the other hand, prefer to lock yourself up in the basement's lab."

"Which I have not been doing lately, thanks to your insane curfews."

"You know you love me."

Tony rolls his eyes heavenward. "Yeah, yeah, give me a kiss, asshole.

Loki does, and they would continue if not for the flashes that go off.

"I guess we should start, now," Loki says, standing, automatically holding a hand out to Tony. Tony takes it and stands up, doing his best not to make a show of the eight million pounds of glamored stomach he's got to lift up as well.

"Good luck, sirs," Jarvis says from his hologramatic position. It's the first time he's been outside of a building that he's not completely integrated to since Tony's created this form.

"Jay, open a new file," Tony whispers to him. "Set it on the public file."

"Of course, sir. It's title?"

"Hard Light Drive?"

Jarvis blinks at him. "Sir, you cannot be serious. Have you not made it known how annoying you think me to be as it is?"

"Just do it, Jay. I have a very big idea."

"Of course, sir. Continue on with the conference. Your husband is shooting daggers of ice at me."

They walk up to the podium, Tony wrinkling his nose up at all of the microphones. It sure has been a long time since he called one of these things… Honestly, he really needs to get out more.

"Uh, hi everyone," Tony says, raising his hand in greeting, turning everyone's attention to him. "Remember when I told you I was Iron Man, and I had cards I was going to stick to? Yeah, don't have those this time. Loki and I are just going to, um…"

"Wing it," Loki says with a smirk, standing all straight and perfect. Then there's Tony, leaning against the podium like a cane. Right.

"Yeah. We're going to wing it." And as he looks out into the crowd, it all comes back to him. The cameras remind him to stand straight, the microphones remind him to speak with confidence because he _owns_ these people, and the size of the throng reminds him that he's completely and utterly insane.

"So I would like to first draw our attention to my husband, who would like to explain to all of you something, and also show you something that will give you…quite a shock. All of my friends and I will vouch for that."

Loki gives the entire room a dark look as he steps closer to the microphones connected to the podium. "All of you know that I am not from here," he begins just as dark, "but there are very few of you who knows where I actually _am_ from. There is a place called Jotunheim, where live the Frost Giants. Picture Goliath of the Bible with blue skin, red eyes, and weapons of ice. That is…what I am. Though I am…a _runt_. These green eyes and alabaster skin are not but a disguise for what I see as a curse. It is such a thing to me because I and the other Asgardian's were raised to think of the Jotun's as demons." (Tony sees Thor flinch slightly.) "We are the monsters that parents tell their children about at night." (Another flinch.) "And I…am going to show you what they look like."

The crowd is bathed in silence as Loki takes a step back from the podium. Then their eyes widen and jaws drop as his skin turns to blue, designs washing over as well. And when he opens his eyes for blood red orbs to glow back at them, they explode into questions and pictures.

But of course Loki quiets all of them with an ear shattering, "SILENCE." And then quieter, he continues: "I do not like this form—my true form. I do not care if any of you think it beautiful as my husband does, and especially not if you think of it as horrific as I do. I will not ever cease to detest it, so it would do all of you well not to _speak_ or even _breathe_ when I look as such. I will not ask if you do not understand, for any of you who do not will again taste how lethal I truly am. Remember when I was a villain? Yes, it would not pain me all that deeply to become as such once again." He takes a deep breath and lets it back out, ice crystals forming on the microphones in front of him.

"Where I am from, there is not a single of us who discriminations against homosexual relations as do some of you idiots of earth. This being said, there are many such relationships in my realm of birth. But there is something else in our…semen." He swallows. "I'm trying to make this as child friendly as possible, by the way, so I apologize for the fact that I'm going to be talking about our honeymoon sex in a few moments. Because of something that Jotun males have in their semen, other males of said homosexual relationships can become pregnant.

"My disguises—being said, when I'm not a small-headed Megamind, as my good friend Hawkeye so politely puts it—also causes changes to the inside of myself. As an example, Jotun blood is actually black, but it still comes out red when I am in my human form. Those same principles go for my semen. So, on our honeymoon, my husband here had a bit of a cold kink—that he still has, actually—in which we had sex while I was in this form."

The throng looks around at each other, wondering if they're allowed to laugh.

"Oh, _laugh_!" Tony says, throwing his hands up. "He's not really going to hurt any of you! Honestly, he's not as frightening now that he's got me."

They still look somewhat cautious.

"Here's an image for you," Tony says, elbowing Loki lightly. "Tony Stark bottoming to an alien with blue skin and red eyes. Just let that sink in for a moment."

That gets a little chuckle out, even from Loki.

"See, that wasn't so hard, was it?" he says.

And when Loki sticks his tongue out at the genius billionaire, he can actually feel the crowd slowly begin to relax even more.

"My turn, anyway," Tony says, smiling brightly out at them. "You all like me better anyway. Don't blame you, really. He tried destroying you, after all! Anyway, the thing is," he says, flashing a bright smile, "I'm about eight months pregnant!"

The room is in absolute silence for about two seconds before it explodes again, even louder than before, when Loki turned blue. But of course Loki just commands them into silence again, icicles jabbing out of his skin to scare them a bit.

"Lordy, you people are terrible," Tony says. "Can't you just keep the hell quiet? We're not taking questions till the end, and we are most definitely _not_ done yet. I know some of you are going to ask about the _size_ of my stomach. Yes, it's flat, but that's just a disguise too. Loki's a magician, after all. And, uh, we're going to show you that too…"

Everyone stares intently as Loki swirls a hand around the part of Tony's stomach that you can't see, and the moment that it's visible the cameras go off and the crowd erupts again.

"_You people wonder why I just wanted to rule you,"_ Loki mutters into Tony's head.

_Should have invited me to help you after you started crushing on me when you threw me out of the window,_ Tony thinks back. _We could have been great partners._

"_Tony."_

Tony looks up to let brown eyes be bored into by red ones. It doesn't matter about the cameras or the people. Tony smiles, and Loki bends down to kiss him, his hands splaying out over Tony's stomach. _"I love you."_

_Love you too,_ Tony thinks, pulling back. _Damn, you really should have just stayed in this form this whole time. I'm not used to how cold you are anymore._

Loki gives a "what can you do" sort of shrug before holding his hand palm-up to the crowd, turning to look at Thor. "Brother!" he calls.

Thor leaps up and bends down to Loki's level so that he can whisper into the blonde's ear. They lean back with smiles on their faces, and Thor pulls his hammer out of the sling he keeps at the side of his armor. A mouthed word from Loki and swing of Thor's hammer, and blue lightning bounds out of Loki's hand and over the crowd, latching onto the ceiling and just sort of hanging their in seaweed-like tendrils. The throng all screams for a moment, all dropping down to the ground, but they do shut up after a moment.

Tony chuckles. "Alright, maybe I lied. He is pretty frightening. Should have kept your mouths shut like we told you to, yeah?" He adjusts his tie and winks at a few cameras. This is actually all going better than he thought it would. He assumed there'd be lots of cussing and maybe even a death, but nope. Of course, it could be going better… But Tony's never asked for anybody to be calm before. To shut up, yes, but never to stay calm. "Anyway, we actually kept this whole thing secret from all of our friends, too, up until a week ago. So basically, the only ones who knew about it for the first seven months were us, Jarvis, and my doctors."

A woman up from raises her hand, and Tony is so taken aback by the politeness that he addresses her: "Um, questions at the end?"

"It's about your AI," she says. Her voice isn't high pitched, isn't sticky, isn't even condescending. Tony just can't help it. It's about one of his creations, after all. He can't help but feel extremely proud for those.

"Um, okay, go ahead. Make it quick, though."

She nods, edging a little closer with her recorder. "I'm from the Avengers Associated magazine"—(yeah, there's definitely one of those out there. It's absolutely impossible for them to get around small-ish interviews—well, except for Natasha and Clint—for it now and again)—"and we were wondering where did you get the inspiration for it's—"

"His," Tony corrects. "It's a him."

She nods politely. "Where did you get the inspiration for _his_ hologramatic form? If at all, I mean. I see him sitting in one of the chairs back there, and I wanted to know if you created the male image from random features, or did you take them from people that you actually know?"

Tony lets out a little sigh. He didn't want to admit the two inspirations at all, let alone on cameras. He turns slightly to glance back at Steve, who's trying very hard not to laugh. Clint and Natasha are blatantly laughing, Pepper is biting on her thumb to keep it quiet, Bruce is just smiling knowingly, and Thor and those other three he brought have no idea what's going on. So Tony sighs and turns back to the woman.

"Two people, actually," he says. "Um, a man who I did not show near enough appreciate to before he, um, left…and the second is my best friend, Captain America."

Steve can't help it anymore. He bursts into laughter.

Tony ignores it, bringing out a laugh. "Um, yeah."

The woman raises her hand again.

"Seriously?"

"Just one more?"

"Only because you're polite."

She smiles, like she knows very well this is how you get people to answer your questions because she's done it a million times before. "May we please have the name of the other man?"

Tony's mouth dries up, and Loki instantly takes over: "He'd really rather not."

"Why not?" somebody else shouts from the crowd as the woman nods, understanding clear in her eyes.

"Because he is dead," Loki says tonelessly.

Tony can't remember the last time either of them had better poker faces.

"How'd he die?" another someone from the crowd yells.

Loki's eyes narrow slightly, and looking the woman who first spoke dead in the eyes, he says, "I killed him." There are hushed whispers throughout the room, but no outbursts, so Loki continues: "It was the same day that I attacked the city with my army, but before. It is the only death that…" He trails off, looking at Tony. _"I probably shouldn't say it's the only one I truly regret in public like this,"_ he thinks.

Tony shakes his head, mouthing a "no".

Loki looks back at the woman. "I am sorry for whatever losses that I caused." And then he turns around, leather flaring out dramatically (because yes, he's in his armor) as he goes and sits in his seat beside Natasha, not flinching when she reaches over and lightly rubs at his shoulder.

"Right," Tony says quietly into the microphones. "Old wounds, old mistakes, old punishments—no need to bring those up now. I'll just…press on… Yeah, I have no idea where I was." He turns around, instantly looking to Pepper.

"Those who knew about the pregnancy," she says, loud enough for him to hear but not for it to project across the room.

"Right!" he says, turning back to the crowd. Yeah, things are beginning to go a little downhill about now. "The people who knew from the beginning! Like I said, Loki and I, Jarvis, and the doctors. Oh, and it's a boy. Kicking like a mule, honestly. It's…" He rubs his hands down his face and leans against the podium again, because whatever. "Oh my lord, it's weird. You females, I don't know how you do it."

There's a cough behind him, and he turns around to see Loki giving him a very big smirk. That's when he remembers that Loki's been pregnant, too (as a female horse, but still). So he bursts into laughter, literally sinking down behind the podium because his legs won't support him.

Loki must be okay again, because he jumps up and takes over the talking again. He's back in his human form, which doesn't surprise Tony at all. He wouldn't want anymore pictures taken of him in a form he hates either. "Little inside story," he says, a new light in his eyes. Tony doesn't know where it came from, but probably Natasha, and Tony's going to have to thank her. "I've been pregnant too!" And he continues before the crowd gets too loud: "For those of you who have read the Old Norse myths, I can shape shift, and I used to do it frequently. Long story short, my son is a male horse name Sleipnir!"

That gets everyone going again, and Tony just keeps laughing.

"Breathe, love," Loki says, squatting down with him.

"I'm going to have a heart attack," Tony wheezes. "Why is everything suddenly so funny? We just talked about Phil, for goodness sake!"

"Remember the mood swings," Loki says, pushing his fingers through Tony's hair.

"Hey, why are _you_ suddenly okay? _You're_ not pregnant."

"No, but Natasha isn't my best friend down here for no reason."

"Yeah? What'd she say?"

"She pointed out that Clint's zipper is down."

They both burst into laughter together, and Tony finally notices that Pepper has been standing above them the entire time, doing the rest of the explaining. "Question time," she says, kicking Tony lightly against the thigh.

Loki kisses Tony hard before he helps him up, everyone bursting into questions again. But then Tony thinks about Clint's fly being down and he bursts into a fit of giggles again, dropping his head against the podium.

"Don't mind him," Loki says. "Nervous breakdown. Questions?"

There are a lot, but Loki takes them all calmly, taking down those lighting tendrils as well.

* * *

Another smack in the middle of the chapter authors notes like yeah: I don't actually want to write out each question individually, so I'm going to do this sort of questions and answers kind of list without getting to see any facial expressions or anything from anyone. Like…well, read on. Like that. Questions are from random reporters, answers are from Loki unless otherwise stated.

* * *

Q: "What's the baby going to be named?"  
A: "We're keeping the name private until the actual birth."

Q: "What's the actual due date?"  
A: "The exact date is December 27 of this year, but we all know how due dates work."

Q: "What was your reaction to finding out about the pregnancy?"  
A: "We found out thanks to morning sickness, but his pregnant didn't even cross our minds. So I took him to the doctors after it continued. The doctors knew first thanks to x-rays, I had to hold onto the wall when they told me, and when I told Tony he fainted."

Q: "This is an open question to all of those seated behind the two of you. What were _your_ reactions to the news of the pregnancy?"  
A: (Steve answers first, being Mr. Responsible.) "We all had pretty different reactions, actually. I believe Miss Potts was the most accepting out of all of us, and me next. There was some vomit, fainting, and they had to repeat it a lot because my brain couldn't process it. Also I broke a cup because I gripped onto it to hard."  
A. (Said by Bruce, who everyone knows is the Hulk.) "I definitely took it the worst. But, for the record, I didn't actually, uh, hulk out at all."  
A. (Said by Clint.) "I'm the one who puked. It…didn't agree with me. I mean, it's all great now, but my body couldn't handle it then."  
A. (Said by Natasha.) "I'm the one who fainted."  
A. (Said by Pepper.) "Actually, I made him fall off of his chair, because that's when I told him that I was getting married." (The crowd laughs, because they already know about it. She and Richard announced it about three days ago.)  
A. (Said by Thor, who even stands for the answer.) "When I learned that my brother would again be having a child, I was far from sulking! Hugs for them both were of course in order, though I managed to gentle myself enough for Tony Stark. He is delicate, after all." (And of course more laughs after that.)

Q: "Do you think that you'll be good fathers, what with such turbulent histories that you both have with them?" (How that person knew about Loki hating his own father is beyond Tony.)  
A: "I think that we'll be the best fathers because of that. If it was just one of us who had grown with no true parental love, we could have a problem. But because it's both of us, I believe that we'll work together to make sure that we don't end up like that at all. Besides, we have more than just parents now, don't we? We have the Avengers. We're a Superfamily."

Q: "Tony Stark, what's going to happen to the company now that you're going to have a child?"  
A: (Tony answers.) "Um, nothing? It's just going to stay the same, really. I think if any real changes had come they would have came already, considering that I've been married just a few months shy of a year, now. Besides, I hardly even run it anymore. Hell, I _don't_. That's my CEO's job, the magnificent Virginia Potts. If you have questions about the company I would just ask her."

Q: "Is the baby shower going to be public?"  
A: "Definitely not, save for two reporters that we will be choosing ourselves."

Q: "Are you excited that it's a boy, or would you rather have a girl?"  
A: "Well, I sort of wanted a girl just because I already have a boy, but it's definitely better that it's a boy. We're both males, after all. The only way a girl would survive is if we dragged Miss Potts and Black Widow around all of the time."

Q: "Are you going to name any godfathers or the like?"  
A: (Tony answers.) "Yes, actually. Rogers has agreed to be the godfather, and Black Widow has so kindly accepted the roll of godmother. The others will be referred to as many other family members, such as Uncle Hawkeye and Aunt Pep."

Q: "Is the baby going to be kept, or will he be put up for adoption?  
A: "What an idiotic question. Of course we're keeping him."

Q: "This is a question for Tony Stark. Why do _you specifically_ believe that this is going to work? You were once known for you playboy tendencies, after all."  
A: (Tony answers.) "Like you said, I was once known for them. But now I happen to be married, and we actually had a little bit of a barbeque to burn all of my…explicit magazines." (People chuckle.) "So I believe that this is going to work because we're a family just like anybody is, and just because we're all totally insane doesn't mean that the child is going to grow up rejecting that."

And then that's that.

**XxX**

"I could sleep for a year," Tony mutters into his pillow.

"Did that once," Loki says. "Three of them straight. You wouldn't imagine how long my hair got… I should cut it again. I like it when it's a little higher than my shoulders." Loki has cut his hair once since being here, but of course it's grown back out since then.

"Three years? Really?"

"Oh yes, very resting. Thor managed a single year, but he can't stand not moving for very long, so he got up before I did. Thing is, he probably got twice as much rest as I did… He turns sleeping like the dead into a living sport."

Tony chuckles. "You did well today."

"I shot lighting tendrils out to hang from the ceiling to scare people into silence."

"Which you took off as soon as the questioning began, right? Right. I meant that you did great for showing everyone your true form. _And_ you told them, unplanned, about Sleipnir! Great fun."

"You didn't do so bad yourself for showing off how fat you are."

"Aren't you the one who gets mad at me for calling our baby excess skin?"

"…no?"

Tony smirks and drapes an arm over his husband's waist. "The baby shower is in two weeks, and we're inviting two reporters. I want the one lady who asked about Jarvis to be one of them because she's nice and her voice doesn't give me a headache."

"I'll be sure to invite her."

"And you asked Fury about adding on an extra room to ours for when we're in Mid—I mean, earth. Damn this Asgardian lifestyle."

Loki smirks. "Yes, and Thor and Odin are drawing up the plans for the room up here as we speak."

"So we don't actually get a say in what it looks like?"

"Fury said that we could design the one in the mansion, but Thor wants the one up here to be a surprise."

"We should draw up the plans right now!"

"I thought you wanted to sleep?"

"Bah, sleep is for the weak." Tony swings out of bed in his pajamas (AKA sweats and a t-shirt, just like what he usually wears around here). "Jay, could you bring up a—"

Hologram Jarvis pops up at the same time that one of Tony's screens do.

"Thank you." He picks up his watch and pulls a little stylus out of a compartment, it only being about the size of his thumb nail until he pulls on it to have it extend out to the size of his index finger. "What shape should it be?"

"Square," Loki says. "Circles make me feel like there's nothing to grasp onto."

"Height?"

"Twelve feet. Whatever odd powers he has, there should have lots of room for it."

And they keep working until they're done, well into the night to where Tony is actually getting somewhat tired. It ends up (including all of the furniture inside of it) looking like a high-tech Asgardian castle with _complete _surveillance thanks to how Jarvis will be programmed into it. It's bright and happy and there's lots of shiny things, because what newborn doesn't like shiny things?

"_Now_ it's time for bed," Loki says, kissing Tony on the temple. "Put the toys away and join me."

"Alright, alright, I'm coming." As Loki goes back over to the bed, Tony walks into the bathroom. He closes the door and sits down on the toilet, only pretending to go. That's when he holds the watch to his mouth (Jarvis's hologram form isn't out right now, but even if it was, he still sees and hears from the watch until Tony makes him a hard light drive) and whispers: "Did you figure out when his birthday is? He still refuses to tell me. Sif told me that it's coming up within the next couple of months, but even she doesn't pay attention to the exact date."

After much calculating of Asgardian and Midgardian dates with Thor," Jarvis whispers back, "we decided that it was January 15."

Tony grins. "Thanks." Then he actually uses the bathroom before going back to bed.

"Sleep well, Lo'," he says, kissing his husband softly before sinking into the bed.

"I will," he replies, kissing him on the cheek before cuddling up to him. "Same to you."

**XxX**

Two days before the baby shower, Fury contacts them to inform them that Amora and Skurge have finally escaped. They had actually escaped nearly three weeks ago, but they thought it was just Skurge because Amora had kept a clone in there. They didn't tell them because they didn't think Skurge was much of a threat without her, and especially because they had eyes on him nearly the entire time—they just couldn't catch him.

But they keep the baby shower on, because it's too important to the public. The Avengers can't panic. They're not allowed to. Besides, they weren't _that_ hard to defeat last time. Tony just has to fall off another building so Loki goes on a rampage again.

Tony finds out that the name of the nice reporter is Amethyst en Tress. The other one they bring in is a man by the name of Skipper ex Tion.

"Present time!" Natasha announces gleefully. Whatever reason she loves presents now, Tony doesn't know. Because she didn't allow any of them to get her anything the last Christmas or for her birthday (a date Tony isn't even positive of).

"GIFTS!" Thor cheers. "HURRAY! You will love mine the _most_!"

Since the poor unborn child's birthday is so close to Christmas, they've decided to just mush it with Indio's birthday until he's old enough to tell the differences, in which they will turn it into a Christmas themed birthday party. The others are all old enough that they don't really care about getting gifts anyway, not to mention they can basically have whatever they want it in the first place. Tony's determined not to let little Indio live that way, though. He doesn't want him to be spoiled rotten and then get made fun of for it, 'cause lord knows Tony was.

Pepper wasn't able to make it because she's all the way out in California or something for who knows what kind of business trip.

Tony's sure that some of his friends actually got things for the baby, like stuffed animals, but most of the stuff at the shower is of course for Tony and Loki to _take care _of the child.

Tony and Loki take their seats in the loveseat positioned at the front of the group. The shower is just being held in the Avengers Mansion rec room (a room filled with mostly things from Tony's own place, like arcade games and other game consoles, lots of TV's, a gumball machine, a giant chess board, and the like…they're basically never in there, though), the other couches and chairs positioned around to face the loveseat, with a space in the middle for all of the gifts. The shower is of course for all of them and not just "the women", b/c having Tony and just Natasha hanging out and then everybody else and Loki running around would be both unfair and slightly awkward. Of course the reporters are all just standing around the room…Tony doesn't like the lady enough to give them a spot on the couches.

"I hope you didn't all just get me diapers," Tony says, pulling a large box wrapped in red, white, and blue paper to his feet.

Loki frowns beside him. "Just get _you_ diapers? They're my diapers too."

Tony scoffs. "Right, because _you're_ going to change them."

"Like you've even _changed_ one before."

"Oh, and _you_ have?"

"SAY NOTHING, BROTHER!" Thor booms before Loki can answer.

The Liesmith smirks at the Thunderer. "Of course not, Thor."

"Oh, come on, now you have to tell us," Bruce says, elbowing Thor lightly. Somehow those two get along the best than with any of the others. Maybe it's because they're always the ones that end up taking enemies down together.

"'Tis embarrassing," Thor mutters darkly.

"Pleeeease?" Tony says. "For the cameras?"

"ESPECIALLY NOT."

Loki looks down at Tony, and says into Tony's head, _"He wore diapers until he was thirteen and didn't get them down correctly until eleven, so I had to help him with putting them on sometimes."_

Tony bursts into laughter, nearly dropping the box in his hands. "Good lord, a thousand years of _that_? I am so sorry for you."

"Well if _we_ don't get to know about it," Clint says, giving Loki the sort of look an eight-year-old would give if somebody told him he's not allowed to have any pudding until _after_ dinner, "just open the damn box."

Tony does, smiling when he sees that it's one of those highchairs with a back, attached table, and an adjustable height. "Oh, awesome, I really didn't want to have to make one of these things." He looks up. "Who's it from?"

They all blink at him.

Tony realizes his idiocy. "Oh. American flag colors. Um. Right. Thanks Steve."

"You're welcome," Steve says brightly, puffing out his chest all proud-like.

Tony smirks. "I take it all of the flag ones are from you? I'll just open all of yours at once. You know, keep stuff together."

"Brilliant plan," Natasha says, kicking her feet up to rest on Clint's lap and to lean back against Bruce.

Of the three other boxes from Steve, the Stark's get a stroller, car seat, and a fur-lined baby carrier for present winter months.

"Wow," Tony says, smiling up at Steve. "Big stuff from the big guy, yeah?"

Steve shrugs. "None of us know anything about baby gifts. Pepper gave us lists of what to get."

"Oh _Steve_," Natasha says. "You weren't supposed to _tell_ them."

"Pft, like it wasn't the only possibility anyway," Tony says, flitting his wrist at her. "Bruce, I want to open yours next."

"Nope," Bruce says. "Mine comes at the end."

"Oh _fine_. Who wants to be next?"

"It shall be I!" Thor booms, raising a fist. "The sparkly yellow ones are mine."

There's a gigantic basket filled with yellow gifts, small ones and flat ones and square ones too. They end up all being toys for the unborn child, which is a completely appropriate gift from Thor. Tony actually laughs a little at the prospect of Thor in the stuffed animal aisle at Toys R Us, wondering why a horse would have such a long neck (a giraffe) and what a cow is doing in the water (a manatee). There are also soft blocks and other toys that will help the teething but won't get swallowed, and even children's books. Of course all Tony can picture is the big blonde sitting down in the middle of the aisle to read them himself.

"He managed to grab a Gay Pride book, too," Natasha says, "but I put it back. Bruce and I decided that it would be best if he decided his sexual orientation for himself."

Thor shrugs as his "mistake" is revealed. "I appreciated its many colors. It reminded me of the Bifrost back home."

Loki opens the next ones, from Natasha and Pepper (though she's not here there's still a gift that she probably had Steve pick up). Natasha (in red wrapping) gets them bathing materials for the child. The clear plastic tub isn't wrapped, but there are lots of other things wrapped in the paper sitting inside of it that are all _sorts_ of things that Tony and Loki will need—including those little towels with hoods in an Iron Man design so that the hood looks like his helmet and the cutest little green robe-like thing that Tony has ever seen. He didn't even know that they made those.

"I couldn't find any God of Mischief ones," she says with a shrug, referring to the hooded towel.

"Fine by me," Loki says with a smile, picking up Pepper's single gift (though it's pretty damn large) wrapped in orange paper to match her hair. "Tony's the narcissistic bastard, not me."

"I am not sure about that, brother," Thor says w/ a chuckle. "There was that one time that you were dead set on the ruling the earth because you thought yourself higher than all of the puny mortals."

Everyone else laughs as Loki sticks his tongue out at his older brother, the reporters snapping more pictures and snickering quietly. Loki had informed them that they're not allowed to talk, because he and Tony want this to be as private as possible.

Pepper's gift is a diaper bag, filled with all _sorts_ of things. Diapers (duh), diaper rash cream, sanitizing wipes, bottles and nipples, formula for when the baby stops nursing (Tony and Loki still need to find a woman who can nurse him until he's old enough for bottles…they would have just have Loki change his shape to do it, but Loki really doesn't like being a woman, so that's just a last resort), sun block (for the middle of December in New York?), plastic bags for trash, four pacifiers (all different w/ themes Tony didn't even know existed: Captain America, Thor's hammer, Black Widow's red hourglass, and the Tesseract. Lordy, people are getting so creative these days…are the Avengers even that popular still? It was over a year and a half ago. Tony would have forgotten about it too if he didn't have to live with them all), and about ten thousand bibs (all with Avengers designs too, as well as a simple A for Avengers, God of Mischief ones, one that says "I'm what happened in Vegas", and a couple personally designed ones that say "Genius Billionaire Playboy Philanthropist", "Some Playboys marry Aliens. GET OVER IT.", and "Indio Erik Stark").

"_Lordy_," Tony breathes, rifling through it all. "We're supposed to carry thing around _regularly_?"

"Um, yeah," Loki says with a laugh. "I think we can take out some of the bibs, though… And at least two of the pacifiers. And the bottles and formula, for now. Oh, look, there's a little card buried there!" He pulls it out and looks it over before bursting into a fit of very unmanly giggles.

"Well let _me_ see it," Tony says, holding his hand out for it.

Loki leans over to him instead, reading it out loud for the others as well:

/

_Property of Tony and Loki Stark, the most insane couple in the entire world._

_If found, please return to the Avengers Mansion (if you don't know where that is you should watch the news more), where you will find the most amazing, terrifying, and cat-filled-minds of the last eight million millennia._

_There's no reward since we're rich and can just buy all new materials, but if you are found in the possession of this bag without returning it we WILL press charges. We do not tolerate the selling of our used pacifiers and diapers on e-bay._

_Thank you._

/

"Would you look at that," Tony says, smiling over at Steve. "Jury's finally back in. On one long ass message, too."

The whole room laughs again at Pepper's message (Steve and Bruce also at Tony's comment since they actually know what he's talking about), the reporters snapping more pictures while their video cameras keep rolling too.

"How I _love_ Midgardian celebrations!" Thor booms, bundling up all of the wrapping paper before throwing it all at Clint. He gives an _oof_ as the force of it knocks him off the couch, causing another bout of laughter to sound throughout the room as a wrapping paper war ensues. They stop, though, when Thor starts to whimper about the sparkles from his yellow paper getting into his eyes.

"Right, anyway," Tony says, waving at Sikes' video camera with a smile. It's like making a home video, but of the most insane family in the entire world, just like Pepper said. "If Bruce is going last, then Clint's next!"

Clint lights up like a firefly, pushing the boxes of purple paper across the rug to Tony and Loki. "I got the most boring job, so I did what I could with what the stores had."

"I'm sure they'll be our favorites," Tony says, picking up one of the three boxes in that thin rectangular shape that they put clothes into.

"I'm sure they'll be _your_ favorites," Loki says, picking up a second box. "I, on the other hand, will have other favorites."

"Oh shush," Natasha says, throwing the empty car seat box at him. "You've told me a million times that—"

Loki shushes her back. "Don't ruin the _surprise_, 'Tasha. It's far too much fun the way it is."

Tony rolls his eyes, because everybody knows very well that he actually adores Clint just as much, if not more, than the others (except of course Natasha, Tony, and Thor). He just loves playing pranks on him the most because he gives the biggest reaction. Frenemies, Tony calls them. Clint tries pulling stuff on Loki back, but he never gets past the _master_.

He and Tony open up the two boxes to find them filled with, yes, baby clothes. Quite a few of them, even, for a little boy who really likes the colors red, green, and blue. Which is just fine, really, because those are the colors Tony would have randomly grabbed out as well (he's never been all that great at the whole domestic shopping thing, mostly because he's never done it before). Knowing Loki, he'd probably choose the same colors. Red for Iron Man, green for _his_ favored color of clothing, and blue for Jotunheim.

"Don't forget about the third one," Clint says, jumping up to grab the boxes out of their hands and put the third on in Tony's hands. "You're killing me on purpose, I know it. Loki, I expected no less from you, but Tony! I thought you liked me a _little_ more than that."

"Lordy, Hawk," Tony says, pulling the paper off of the third box. Keep your arrows in their carrier, we were _getting_ there."

Loki takes and puts the box in his own lap, opening it up so that Tony can look into the contents. He really does very good at pretending not to care about Clint at all.

"Oh, it's what his baby blanket will be!" Tony says, pulling it out. "A quilt! With his initials quilted onto it!"

"I-E-S?" Loki says, pushing the box onto the floor. But he pauses there, simply staring at it before he pulls it out of Tony's hands to stare at it some more. He holds it out to full length, just _staring_ at it with wide eyes. It's a rectangle of blue fabric that so closely resembles the blue of Loki when he's in his Jotun form that Tony can't help but stare as well. There's white trim around the edges, and each letter is in a different color as well: Red for the _I_, green for the _E_, and purple for the _S_.

"This is homemade," Loki says, dropping it to his lap so he can look over at Clint.

The assassin nods, a bright but somewhat embarrassed smile on his face. "I had this mission a few years ago where I had to learn to quilt, and I decided the kid would want something to remember us all by! Steve is all of the white trim, blue background, and red _I_, and the blue is also of course for your Frost Giant form. I actually had to ask Jarvis to show me the footage of _way_ back when you accidentally walked in still blue, and this was the closest to it that I could get. Oh, and if you look close enough you'll see that the stitching is of the grey-blue markings you've got. The _I_ is red for the Iron Man suit, Black Widow's red hourglass, and Loki's eyes in the same form. And it's an eye, you know? Like his _eye_? Get it?" He chuckles at himself, which makes Tony want to hug him. For whatever reason, this whole thing is making both master assassins very happy, and Tony can't help but smile at it.

"Anyway," Clint continues, "the _E_ is green for Loki's human eyes and leather, and of course Bruce's Hulk look." He smiles over at the doctor, who just rolls his eyes behind his glasses. "The _S_ is purple for the parts of my outfit, and all the shirt that Bruce likes wearing. You know, the one he destroyed during the war and then proceeded to buy about five more of the exact same one? Yeah, that one. There's also black stitching in the bottom right corner, just really small, which stands for Loki's leather, the color that 'Tasha and I mostly wear, and Fury's eye patch. It says the date and all of our names—our real names, not Hawkeye and Iron Man and stuff." He coughs. "Thor, buddy, sorry that you didn't get on it at all, but I sort of thought, um… Well, Tony and Lo' are there because they're the parents, even though they're not going to…you know…with you up in Asgard."

The room falls silent, taking in Clint's words. They know that he's trying to bring up the whole living forever (almost/basically) thing without saying it outright on the cameras. Tony forgot about it, somehow. He forgot that, while he's all but frozen in time with his husband (thankfully his pregnancy wasn't, or Tony would have had to put a pause on the whole immortality thing), his friends are all still aging "quickly". One day, Steve really will look ninety years old. Natasha won't be able to beat the shit out of a anyone anymore. Clint won't be able to hit any target he wants because his eyesight will get bad. And Bruce will have to stop playing around in the lab because he'll be too weak to hold the test tubes. And Fury…well, the prospect of Fury dying is impossible to comprehend all in itself. But Tony, Loki, and Thor…they'll be fine for the next few hundred millennia. They'll still look the same in a thousand years. And Indio will grow until he's old enough to decide what he wants. To grow slow, or to grow fast. There's no "normal" rate anymore. Not when he's born of fathers from two different worlds.

"Well, that's enough of that," Steve say cheerily, toeing the last presents. There are two, one of them a solid green and the other green and black. "Open the last ones."

"The solid green one is from just me," Bruce says with a smile. "And the one there that's black as well is from Loki, too."

Tony looks at Loki. "You got us something?"

Loki shakes his head. "I got _you_ something."

"Aww, you didn't have to do that."

"It's okay; I used your money anyway."

The inhabitants of the room snort, including Tony, who leans up to kiss Loki on the cheek as Clint pushes the one green box and the black and green box across the rug to them with his foot.

Tony picks up the one that's also from Loki first, because it's shaped like one of Tony's favorite things ever: a very good sized bottle of scotch.

"It's for after the birth, of course," Loki says. "Since you've had to give it up for the last nine months, and everybody _knows_ how much you love to drink."

Tony smirks at him. "Promoting my getting drunk a week after the birth?"

"Oh no, you'll be far too busy for that. A month after, more likely. I'll treat you to it."

Tony gives a real smile, pulling over the all green box. It's one of those flat rectangular boxes that clothes come in, but when Tony opens it up, it's definitely not clothes. It's a framed picture, a good sized card resting over the picture so that Tony can't see the whole thing. He and Loki read the card first.

/

_Dear Tony and Loki,  
We hope you'll miss us as much as much as we already miss you.  
Love, the Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D., and everybody else_

/

And then it's been signed by at least a hundred thousand people, all of them giving their very own messages:

/

Steve's is normal sized, but it's a complete mess:  
_Tony, I asked you what you were under the suit, and I've decided that I already know. You're my best friend, and I know now that you ARE the type of man that would lie down on the wire—if you couldn't find something to cut it with, of course. Loki, remember how I was the one who put the muzzle/gag on you? And you tried biting me? Pretty happy about it NOW, I bet!  
—Steve Rogers  
"Cap", "Capsicle", "the All-American Virgin" (I hate you Tony)_

Pepper's is about the same as Tony's has always been. Large and small at the same time, messy and neat at the same time. Neither of them know how they do it, but they do:  
_Tony, I literally do not even know what to say. After all these years, what is there TO say? I love you, and if you dare order strawberries for my wedding I WILL END YOU. Loki, good luck. You've managed to survive so far, but I'm not sure how long you're truly going to last. Heads up, even I cracked a couple of times. I quit twice, you know.  
—Virginia Potts  
"Pepper", "Pep", "that lady I pay to be my CEO", "the woman that saves your ass at nearly every party and meeting you've ever gone to in your entire life"_

Natasha's is in easy-to-read cursive, which can't be said for most cursives:  
_Lo', I've never become friends with my enemies before. Clint doesn't count because we never really were out to kill each other—you know that story. Thank you for putting a snap in my life that didn't involve necks. Tony, congratulations for being the first man that I never actually WANTED to kill.  
—Natasha Romanov  
"Black Widow", "the hot bitch with tight pants" (surprisingly I still don't want to kill you)_

Bruce's is small and timid, but easy to read even with the size:  
_Tony, thank you for making me feel like I'm more than just a monster. Loki, thanks for all the times you snuck down to the lab to help me with something when Tony was sleeping or out with Steve.  
—Bruce Banner  
"the Hulk", "enormous green rage monster"_

Clint isn't in cursive, but it's far too frilly for the assassins own good:  
_Small-headed Megamind, you're insane, and I hate you. Tony, you're insane, and I hate you too. Thanks for all the arguments and pranks that almost killed me. Love you guys. Honestly, this whole hero life wouldn't have been near as fun without you two and your sarcasm.  
—Clint Barton  
"Hawkeye", "Legolas", "gay cupid on steroids" (I think we're all going to kill you before you have the CHANCE to live forever)_

Thor's is huge and take's up most of the card, and he didn't even sign it, which he didn't really need to anyway because it's so obvious that it's his:  
_I LOOK FORWARD TO THE LIVES WE WILL SPEND TOGETHER, AND TO MEET YOUR CHILD!_

Jarvis must have printed it on or something, because it's in his favored twelve-point Times New Roman font:  
_ Stark, what else is there to say other than thank you? And Mr. Loki Stark, thanks to you as well for always being on my side. I look forward to the years to come.  
—Jarvis  
"Jay"_

And the last one is from Fury, whose writing is in small-caps and completely straight up and down:  
_You two mothersfuckers have been a thorn in my side for a lot longer than I planned. You better take care of the motherfucking planet for me when I'm gone.  
—Nicholas Fury  
"Director", "Cobra Bubbles" (I already punished Stark for that, and he better fucking remember it)_

/

Tony can't help but laugh, because they actually all used the nicknames he's given him over the years. And yeah, he definitely remembers the punishment he got for calling Fury after a cartoon character.

He hands the card to Loki and pulls out the frame, his words of thanks trapping in his throat when he sees what it is. A collage of all sorts of pictures. Some that Tony recognizes instantly, others that he doesn't recognize at all. Half of it is "dedicated" to Tony, and the other half to Loki (some even from Asgard, though Tony hasn't a clue how they actually got pictures taken up there…Jarvis, maybe?).

There's one of Tony and Bruce in the lab, bodies black and sooty from an explosion.  
One of Loki and Thor curled up on the couch during the very first week that they were here, when Loki didn't talk or eat.  
One with Tony and Steve smiling brightly in a picture Jarvis obviously took of Tony trying to teach Steve how to use his iPhone.  
One with Loki's arms slung around Sleipnir's neck and a brilliant smile on his face.  
One with Tony fast asleep on the couch with purple and red pigtails in his hair, Clint leaning down with a thumbs up and one eye shut in a wink.  
And good lord, Loki is painting Natasha's toenails while she's on the phone gabbing away to who-knows-who…whoever took that picture is a brave, brave person.  
And the most embarrassing one, a couple pictures from Jarvis in which Tony is "flying" around the room in Loki's cape and helmet.  
And one of Loki and Pepper playing video games (when did _that_ happen?), Pepper curled up on the floor in front of the couch and Loki sitting upside down so that his feet are straight up and his hair is touching the floor.

And there are still others, not just focused on Tony and Loki. Right smack in the middle is one of _all_ of them. Tony, Loki, Steve, Natasha, Bruce, Clint, Fury, Pepper, and even Hill.  
And there's one of Phil, looking over at the camera with a "_…what are you doing?_" kind of face.  
One of Thor, hair in a braid and dyed purple for _whatever_ reason, bright green shutter shades on his face (Tony doesn't know who's taking it, but Clint is crying of laughter in the background).  
One of Fury and Hill, Hill giving a "oh _fine_" kind of smile and Fury glaring with one of those "_I am bored out of my fucking mind and if you take that picture I am going to feed you to the Hulk_" faces.  
One of Steve, Clint, and Natasha, all having switched outfits. Natasha is drowning in Captain America's suit, Clint is posing seductively in Natasha's tight leather that _barely_ fits him, and Steve looks like he can't breathe in Clint's getup.

"Lordy," Tony breathes, looking up at all of them. "I don't even know what to say to this."

"_I_ don't even know what to say!" Loki says.

"This is amazing. The card, too. You have no idea how much I—"

"How much _we_ love you all," Loki says. "Yes, Clint, even you."

He rolls his eyes.

"We're just really going to miss you guys, you know?" Natasha says, throwing another empty box at Loki. "It's going to be…really weird."

It looks like Steve is about to speak, but Amethyst does instead, breaking the no talking rule: "Well isn't that just the _sweetest_? All the little people talking about how much they _love_ each other because they're going to die before their _greatest two_."

They all turn to frown at her. "Excuse us?" Tony says. "Is there something wrong with that? How do you even have _any_ idea what we're talking about?"

She grins, and that's when Loki leaps up.

"How did you—"

"Get past you?" she says, dropping her camera to the ground, not flinching when it makes a small _crack_. "It was _easy_. You've been so busy with your husband and the pregnancy and _everything else_ that all I had to do was get in with your precious _Tony_ and my Executioner and I were _set_."

Everybody else understands instantly. Amethyst is Amora, of course. And Sikes is Skurge.

"You nearly killed him the last time we fought," Loki growls, stepping between her and Tony. "Your revenge has long ago been met, Enchantress."

"Oh no, it's all just been a build up. I had to wait for you to fine somebody you would die for, you see. And now that I have, the _real_ revenge begins."

And then all hell breaks loose. Both reporter disguises shatter, and Amora and Skurge are instantly rushing themselves at Tony and Loki. The two gods are the only real threats to them in the room right now. None of them expected this. None of them are suited up. They're all completely exposed.

Loki splits himself in half, the clone pulling Tony away from the trouble as the other battles the witch. Thor takes Sk on right away, leaving the others to duck in cover and try not to die. It's insane, one spell after another. Amora has become stronger, as has her bodyguard. It rages on, Tony still being protected by the clone and the other four Avengers trying to be useful and completely failing.

Thor manages to throw Sk out of the large window facing the same direction as the front of the mansion, and that's when Bruce comes 'round. The Hulk flies out of the broken window after the Thunderer, roaring loud enough to shake Tony's ears. This is not going well at _all_. At least Tony and Loki's presents were all pushed up against the wall… they haven't been destroyed _yet._ But the blanket! Where's the—

Tony stops panicking when he sees that Steve somehow managed to grab it, holding it tight to his chest as he attempts to protect Natasha and Clint from the giant flying chess pieces and other things, the three of them pressed beside the side of the couch. Of course, the two master assassins would probably be better at protecting themselves. Tony can tell that they all want to help, but they're also not stupid. They know their help would be utterly pointless in this fight.

And then it happens. The winning move. Amora's hand slams itself over Loki's mouth, and a lavender colored gas begins to lick itself around the god like tentacles. His eyes roll into his head before he drops to the ground, completely out cold. The clone protecting Tony from flying debris and things disappears.

The Enchantress grins evilly, waving her hand to make the gas float over to the three by the couch. Steve and Natasha try to scramble away and fail, but Clint tries to launch at her and fails even worse, all of them dropping into a sort of sleep.

Amora turns to Tony, green eyes alight with darkness and a bit of humor.

"It took my Skurge and I so long to escape from your dungeons, Tony Stark," she says, flopping herself across the loveseat that Tony and Loki were sitting on only minutes ago.

"They're not mine," Tony croaks out.

"Oh, of course not. They belong to…what was it called…yes, S.H.I.E.L.D. Tell me, what does it stand for?"

"I couldn't repeat it if I wanted to."

"Oh? What if _your life depended on it_?"

"Did I stutter?"

She smirks. "It is a good thing it does not, then, or you would be dead right now. Of course, you will die anyway…" She stands, making her way slowly—_slowly_—over to Tony. Halfway, Loki starts to stir. "Curse these powers of mine," she says, giving him a glance. "They never work as well on other magicians as I would wish."

"Or it could just be that he's a god…"

Loki wakes up completely, shaking his head back and forth, looking straight up at Amora.

She continues advancing on Tony—without his suit, dammit. Not that he would fit in it anyway, even if he could get to it—slower than necessary.

So Loki speaks: "Amora!" he chokes out. "Please, I love you, you can't!"

Amora snorts. "You have _got_ to be joking. God of Mischief and Lies and _that's_ what you come up with to save your husband?" But she freezes when she turns, because there are tears welling below Loki's eyes.

"I mean it, 'Ora," be breathes. "The people that I love the most, those are the ones that I hurt the most. The ones I lie to, the ones I pull the pranks on. You _know_ that. Look at Thor! He's endured even more than you have because he's my _brother_. You understand, don't you? You must."

She laughs. "I am not as gullible as you wish, Liesmith. You will have to try far harder than that."

"I can prove it," Loki says.

Tony frowns. Prove it? That would mean that he's got to be telling the truth though. And he's obviously not. Who in their right mind would put up with Tony after all this time when they love somebody else? It's has to be a ruse.

She chuckles. "Alright, do it, then. But I still will not believe you."

Loki holds his hand out to her, palm up. Closing his eyes, he seems to be concentrating. And then all of the concentration morphs together, because a symbol appears on his skin. It's the color of blue he is in his Jotun form, looking somewhat like a sun at the same time that it looks like the Satanism symbol.

But Amora gives one of the most painful, surprised gasps Tony has ever heard, so it must not have to do with stars _or_ the devil.

"It is not possible," she whispers, arms dropping to her sides. "You love _him_."

"No," Loki says, not giving Tony a second glance as a beautiful smile spreads across his face. "I do not. How could I? I pull the least amount of pranks on him, and I cannot remember the last time that I lied to him. I love _you_, Amora. You are my enchantment."

Tony wrinkles his nose up. Judging from Amora's reaction, the symbol on Loki's hand is not something to be taken lightly. But he still doesn't believe that Loki is telling the truth. How could he be? Like…honestly. He simply couldn't be. They're too perfect for each other. They've endured too much.

"I still do not believe it," Amora says, baring her teeth. But her voice falters, and Tony knows that yeah, she probably does.

"Then come," Loki says, standing up slowly, continuing to hold his hand out to her. "Touch it. It will not burn, I promise you."

Amora swallows, and Tony almost cries for joy when she begins to walk slowly towards the trickster. His husband is brilliant—_brilliant_.

Amora reaches out and places her hand upon the symbol tentatively, and it begins to glow, fading from blue to a very bright white. She gasps again, hands flying to her chest. "Oh _Loki_," she breathes. "You tell _truth_."

Tony frowns. This is a very good trick if she still believes it after…whatever just happened.

Loki gives her a smile. A smile that Tony has only ever seen directed at him. A smile that screams how in love he is, how happy he is… And then Loki is pulling her forward, hands holding to the sides of her face, and pressing their lips softly together.

And Tony's entire world shatters.

* * *

End chapter A/N's: CLIFFHANGER. MWAHAHAHAHA. Yeah, good thing I upload my stories all at once instead of updating sporadically. Haha. Enjoy the next chapter that you can instantly just click over to :P


	6. Part II, Chapter 3

**Part II, Chapter 3**

P.S. The beginning here is…quite graphic. Yeaaah. Enjoy that!

* * *

Tony just gapes at them completely tongue-fucking, feeling as though everything in his life is over. It is over. He loves…loved…fuck. The kid is definitely going up for adoption. Tony can't do this without Loki. Fuck no, no can't even try to—

Loki suddenly thrusts Amora's face away from his, a look so feral and evil and _terrifying_ on Loki's face that even Tony is scared. And then there's a sickening _crunch_ and _crack_ and _rip_ as Loki jerks Amora's head to the side with so much twisting force that her neck is ripped off of her head completely, body dropping to the ground with a _thud_. Blood pours around Loki like a waterfall, puddling up on the carpet at his feet. Entrails drip from Amora's neck, her esophagus and part of her spine still dangling. Things Tony can't even name flop out of the opening of the body on the floor, one of them dropping onto Loki's tall black suede boots that Tony has grown to love so much. Loki's fingers flex, and they pop into the skin of Amora's head, more blood oozing out the sides and dripping over his hands and down his arms. Something else happens so that her eyes pop out, cords hanging down to her lips.

When Loki looks up at Tony, teeth fangs and eyes red, Tony can't take it anymore. He leans forward and vomits onto the carpet in front of him, the blood running down to mix with it, making him lose it a couple more times. Loki stays where he is, staring down at Tony with an unreadable look.

"Oh _sir_," Jarvis says (the first thing he's said after all this time, too, b/c Loki told him to keep quiet for the cameras, and Jarvis _always_ listens to what _Loki_ says). "If I weren't a AI I'd be on my _fifth bag_ by now."

"I'm sorry," he whispers, Amora's head dropping down onto her body with a dull _thunk_. "She was going to kill you. I had to do something."

Tony spits before sitting back up, looking back at his…husband. His teeth are normal and his eyes are green again. "I'm not sure which part you're apologizing for," he chokes out.

"Kissing her," he says. "But I am also sorry that you had to watch…that. I have been waiting to do it to her for a very long time now." He says something under his breath, and for a moment his entire body glows. He walks away (still glowing) from the mess of guts and blood, and when the glowing stops he's completely clean from any part of Amora.

Tony nods. "It's…it's alright. I just…yeah, remember that time that you told me you wouldn't lie to me?"

"I did not lie to you," he says, walking over to sit down beside Tony, feeling him over with magic to make sure that he's okay. "I lied to _her_. Besides, even if I had been speaking to you, I told you that I would only lie if it meant protecting you. Did you truly believe that I could have been lying all that time, though? About loving you? About _us_?"

Tony purses his lips. "Did you really have to kiss her? 'Cause that's what did it, you know."

"I had to gain full trust for her to let her guard down long enough to kill her."

"Is she…is she really gone?"

"Yes."

Tony lets out a sigh of relief. "And Skurge?"

"You missed it. When he crashed out of the window and Thor and the Hulk went down after him, I kept tabs on the fiasco—probably not a good idea, because it somewhat let my guard down up here—and Skurge is very dead as well, smashed to death by our friends. Hulk is Bruce again, being tended to by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. They should be up swiftly, along with Thor."

Tony nods and swallows. "I can't believe I've never asked you this before, but what…started it all? What sort of thing did you do to her to make her want to cause such a revenge on you?"

"She and Skurge were long ago exiled from Asgard. I was there, and they looked to me for help. To vouch for them. Instead, I paralyzed Skurge—as in froze him in time, not snapped his spine—with my magic before casting them out myself. It took her two-hundred years to release Skurge from the wall-less prison, and she was after me ever since. I deserved it, really, but that did not mean I would take it lightly. She has been doing little things to me for millennia, including once stealing Thor's soul—which I got back nearly right away—and greatly injuring Sleipnir."

"Ah, I see. And now she's…gone."

There's a groan a little ways over, and Tony and Loki look to see that Steve, Natasha, and Clint are waking up from Amora's magic. It must take a moment to ware off.

Clint is closest to the…mess…of Amora. "What on earth…" he mutters, pulling his hand groggily out of a very blood-soaked carpet. "What is—HOLY FUCK!" he screams, scrambling away.

"WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE ONE TRUE GOD HAPPENED?" Steve exclaims when he sees it as well.

Natasha just turns very, _very_ green.

"She was going to hurt my husband who happens to also be with child—_my_ child," Loki says, turning his hand blue and pressing it to Tony's forehead to cool him down a little. "I may have gotten a little carried away."

"A little?" Steve whimpers, slamming his hands over his eyes. "I took part in World War II, and I have never been so disgusted in my entire life."

"That is the most revolting thing I have ever seen," Clint says, slowly standing up. His eyes betray him, though. They look mesmerized by it all.

"I thought _I_ had gotten good at neck snapping," Natasha says, leaning against Clint's leg, facing away from the mess.

"Do you think Fury will be angry?" Steve asks.

"I don't care," Tony and Loki say at the same time. They're too tired to smile at each other.

"If he's not angry about her being dead," Clint says, "he _will_ be pissed about the mess you've made. It's going to cost a fortune to replace such expensive leather couches." (Yeah, they were standing close enough that the blood pouring from her neck soaked the couch beside them as well.)

"Skurge is dead, too," Loki says. "Thor and the Hulk decimated him. He's undecipherable from the concrete below, now. At least Bruce didn't break Harlem again."

"How do you know that?" Natasha asks.

In reply, Thor flies up with his hammer and lands just inside the window break. "My friends! The evil Executioner Skurge is dea—BY THE ALLFATHER, LOKI, MUST YOU BE SO ENTHUSIASTIC IN YOUR KILLINGS?" He waves a hand dismissively at the mangled remains of what used to be the great Enchantress. "No matter. As long as they are gone, it is good. Fury and the other members of Protection are coming up."

Tony snorts. It's just so funny to him that Thor calls S.H.I.E.L.D. "Protection", because that's what a S.H.I.E.L.D. is, right? One day he'll explain to the thundering blonde what an acronym is, but that day is not today.

Tony turns to Loki, letting the others speak amongst themselves. "What was that symbol, anyway? Amora was having multiple heart attacks over it."

Loki holds his palm out to him, symbol showing back up. "It's something we made up as children. Something that meant we were telling the truth. It's very, _very_ hard to replicate when you are lying. I never told her that I could do it."

"How exactly does it work?"

"Simply that if you can get it to show up, it means that you're not lying."

"But you're the _god_ of lies. Why would she believe you?"

He gives one of those "mmhmm suuure" kind of laughs. "I meant what I said about it being very difficult. I can't move my legs right now."

Tony frowns, pushing at one of said legs. It flops over without any resistance in a very uncomfortable looking position, so he quick puts it back. "What about when it glowed to white, though? What did that mean?"

"If the person I'm speaking to touches it and it glows white, I'm telling the truth. If I'm lying, it kills me. I've never tried to do it before while I'm lying. I honestly didn't know if I was going to be able to pull it off."

Tony gapes at him. "You risked your life to save mine?"

"Both of yours," he says, the symbol disappearing and that hand reaching out to set on Tony's stomach. Halfway to it, though, he stops with an, "Ow, not good".

Tony bites his tongue for all the things he wants to say about Loki risking his life and not being allowed to do it anymore. "What's wrong?"

"Well, when I said that I couldn't move my legs, that may have been a bit of an understatement. It hurts to move any part of my body other than my mouth right now."

"What about your eyelids?" Tony asks like his true jackass nature begs him to.

"Those too, but thankfully I don't actually _have_ to blink. The symbol were very…draining. I am quite positive that my magic would fail if I were to suddenly need it within the next twenty-four hours. Actually, I don't think I'll be able to stay awake for much long—" And at that precise moment, his eyelids flutter, and he crumples again into a pile.

S.H.I.E.L.D. agents of course come in right then as well, coming in to find out what all has happened. Fury is with them.

"WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED UP HERE?" he booms, eyes only glancing at the magical bitch remains.

Steve begins explaining right away, which is good because Tony completely ignores it all. He just calls to some of the agents to get a stretcher over here to take Loki to the hospital, going after them as fast as his stomach will allow. Fury calls after him by the time they get to the elevator, but Tony just flips him off before stepping inside of it.

Down outside, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents have roped off Skurge's remains and some of them are tending to Bruce, who's already had clothes put back on him. Tony's never seen him revert back to his human form before…

That's when he's informed that there's not going to be enough room for him in Loki's ambulance.

"Not enough _room_? Throw out a fucking agent! I am his fucking _husband_ and I am pregnant with _his_ child and there is no way in _hell_ I'm just going to _sit out_ of this fucking drive!"

"Hey, I-Man!"

Tony whirls to see none other than the van they drove to the hospital for Loki the last time, Clint driving and Natasha the one who called him from the passenger seat.

"Just like old times?" she says, smiling at him.

Tony smiles and nods, flipping off the agent he was talking to before going around to the other side of the van to open the door and slide into the seat behind the two very front ones. Imagine his surprise when Agent Hill is sitting inside as well.

"Oh _hi_," he says, giving her a sort of "fuck you" look. "So _sad_ that you couldn't make it to the baby shower."

She narrows her eyes at him. "I'm just hitching a ride, Stark. Don't think I'm doing this for you."

"Oh no, didn't even cross my mind. Hey, would you hate me more if I pushed you out of the door?"

"Alright, al_right_," Natasha says, turning around to glare at them. "Tony, I expected no less from you, but you are going to need to figure out how to have a serious attitude change if you're going to raise a kid without having him turn into _you_. Agent Hill, I expected better from you. Grow up, both of you. Just because we have a homophobic bitch with us doesn't mean it has to be announced."

Clint snorts, trying to focus on the road, but Tony just laughs pointedly at the agent.

Agent Hill gives a brilliant poker face. "Don't make me report you to Director Fury, Agent Romanov."

"Pft, like I'm scared of _him_," she says. "I'm an Avenger. I can get away with anything that I want to."

Something about that seems to set Hill off, and her "I'm a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent don't mess with me" aura is gone. "Yeah?" she says, crossing her arms and throwing her feet up to rest them on Natasha's armrest. "Well I'm a higher rank than you be_cause_ you're in the Avengers, and you've been here two years longer than I have."

"Sweetheart," Natasha (and Tony swears he can see her eyes snap in the Z-formation) says, pushing her shoes off the rest, "I _requested_ this job so I could be with my _friends_ and the man I _love_. _You_ on the other hand…" She laughs. "Well, I kill most of the guys I'm supposed to sleep with before they even get the chance to, and I've _still_ gotten more action that you."

Clint gives one of those "oh you did NOT just say that!" round-mouth laugh kind of things, and Tony ends up shedding a few tears. "Burn, baby," he says to her. "Buuurn."

The rest of the drive Hill just stares out of her window without a sound, Tony telling the other two what happened when they were out cold as best as he can. When they get to the hospital, having stayed behind the ambulance the entire time, Hill goes off to whatever she needed a ride for while the other three follow Loki's stretcher into the hospital and up to his room.

When the nurse comes out only ten minutes later (a woman Tony's never had to deal with before, thank goodness), she tells him that Loki is totally fine except that he's completely exhausted from the fight (the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents must have filled her in on the basics), and that he's asleep but they're allowed inside.

"You take this one," Clint says, setting a hand on his shoulder. "I'll go back to the mansion and make sure they're treating Brucey-kins alright."

"And I'm going to go make sure I didn't make Hill cry _too_ hard," Natasha says, winking at Tony.

"Thanks guys," Tony says, reaching to open the door to the room. "You know, for driving me here. Oh, and to Clint for being a hell of a lot cuter than I thought he could be. Honestly, you _made_ our child's _baby blankie_."

He grins. "Hey, I already know that if _Loki_ is thanking _me_, whatever I got is pretty fucking awesome. Now stop talking to us and go fall asleep by your number-one guy like you did all those months ago."

"One year and a month ago," Tony says, pushing the door open. "Give or take a few days." He grins before shutting the door behind him. He pulls one of the chairs from the wall over to sit in it beside the bed, leaning against the bed, knowing that he's just going to go straight to sleep.

Yeah, just like old times.

**XxX**

A faint touch to his cheek and Tony's eyes open to Loki smiling down at him, looking tired but quite a bit better than he did when Tony first came in here. "I never thought I'd be nostalgic for such a scene as this," he says, pushing his fingers through Tony's hair. "Are you feeling alright?"

Tony sits straight up, pushing Loki's hand out of his hair right away. "I am going to _kill_ you," he mutters.

Loki frowns, dropping his hand. "Why? What did I do wrong?"

"You are not allowed to risk your life so extensively, do you understand me? Jumping off a building to catch me when I'm falling from a riff in space like the Hulk did, sure, but _not when you've never tried it before_."

Loki sighs. "Tony, honestly, you know I'm going to anyway. I didn't marry you to watch you get torn apart like Amora—because that's what she would do, you know. Just slower. She'd make sure you felt it."

"Loki, I don't _care_. You could have at least jumped her or something. Thor and the Hulk would have been right up if you had seen them, and with all three of you against her you would have taken her down easily!"

"Tony, I—"

"YOU DIDN'T NEED TO DO IT, OKAY? I won't die. I'll never die. I'm Tony fucking Stark, Man of Iron. Iron doesn't just _die_."

"But you _can_ die!" Loki snaps, reaching forward to grip onto Tony's wrist. "You're not immortal! You're _human_, and humans don't survive without _help_."

"I don't know, I was doing just _fine_ before you came along."

Loki eyes turn red. "Ex_cuse_ me?"

Tony sighs, putting his face in his hands. "That's not what I meant. I was trying to make a point."

"Oh, well you made one just _fine_, thanks."

He looks up from his hands to glare at the god. "Not a point about that, dammit! A point about you _not_ risking your life like that! Not for me or anybody else, because if you die I have no idea how the hell I'm going to cope with anything, okay?"

"Oh, and you think _my_ life is going to be rainbows and butterflies without you?"

"I know it won't because you've told me before, but that doesn't make me okay with it! Because our child is _not_ going to grow up with one fucking parent, so now that all the bad guys are gone maybe we can just _settle the fuck down_!"

"Oh, _I_ should settle the fuck down? Excuse _me_ Mr. Telling Me When and When I Can't Risk My Life. Which one of us is the god here? Which one of us will be a _lot_ better at surviving? Not _you_, Mr. Man of Fucking Iron."

"I didn't mean you specifically, you idiot! I meant both of us! I mean that every last one of the Avengers needs to slow their lives down if they want these eight million extra pounds to grow up _properly_."

"Remember when we told Steve, Tony? And we had this big conversation about how fucked up our lives are going to be? It's not like that's suddenly going to just be able to change when our child is born so he grows up any different. He's going to become part of the insane cat-filled-mind family that Pepper so graciously dubbed us. Hell, Tony, he's not even going to be human! He'll be Jotun, Asgardian, _and_ human. Three species that will turn him into Allfather knows what. He might have an extra finger, an eye on his bellybutton—hell, he might even have hot pink fairy wings! We'll have to change his name to Angel! We can't just _settle the fuck down_. We're _stuck_ this way."

Tony stares at him, because he knows exactly how right he is. He just doesn't want to accept it. "I don't care," he says, standing. "I don't care. I'm leaving."

Loki sits up, eyes blinking rapidly for a moment because it must have been too fast. "What? You can't go."

"Yeah? Watch me."

"Tony! Where are you going? It's two in the morning, you can't go anywhere right now!"

"Free country, I do what I want." He slams the door closed behind him, shooting daggers with his eyes at the nurse that's about to walk inside. He stomps his way around the hospital, ignoring the eyes that look at him. Ignoring the whispers. Even at two in the morning the hospital is all sorts of alive.

"_Hey, look, it's Tony Stark!"  
"Wow, Iron Man, in the FLESH!"  
"He's a lot bigger than he was when he first told."  
"Geez, he has more hips than I do and he's a MAN."  
"If he wasn't married I would totally let him take me home."_

Totally just walks right past them all and out of the door. Yeah, judging by how fucking cold it is and how dark it is out, it's definitely two in the morning. Awesome.

"Hey, Tony Stark, right?"

Tony turns to the sound of his name to see a man a head shorter than him and somewhat overweight. "Yeah, what's it to you?" he snaps.

"You look cold, and I happen to have an extra coat in my bag here." He opens a flap in his satchel, pulling out a trench coat. "Here, you can wear it. It was a buy one get on free sale anyway. I don't need it."

Tony frowns, taking it from him. It fits him perfectly, including how he can button it around his stomach. "Um…thank you. I don't know what else to say."

"That's good enough," the man says. "I'm just glad it fits around your globe there."

Tony breathes a little laugh. "Heh, yeah, surprising. Um, if you don't mind me asking, what are you doing out here with shopping bags at two in the morning?"

He chuckles. "My car broke down at ten, so I walked the ten blocks to the grocery store to grab a few things there, since they don't close till about three. Now I'm walking home."

"Oh _wow_. I don't think I've _ever_ had to walk that far before."

He shrugs. "Exhilarating, really. I'm just glad I happened to buy a whole bunch of a new winter materials in my shopping. Want to borrow a scarf?"

"Ha, no, I'm fine. Thank you, though."

"No, no, don't give me that, I can see you shivering. Here, just take it. We can figure out a place to meet if you want to give them back to me so bad."

Tony smiles at him, taking the scarf and wrapping it tightly around his neck.

"Gloves too, here."

Tony doesn't even get to take them. The man reaches over and pushes them onto his hands.

"I'll definitely have to meet you somewhere," Tony says, giving him a very, very grateful smile. "I don't even know what to say."

The guy smiles. "Just answer a question for me."

Tony shrugs. "Yeah, sure."

"What are _you_ doing out here, outside of the hospital at two in the morning, when your husband is up there in one of the rooms?"

Tony frowns. "How'd you know about that?"

"Mr. Stark, please, it was all over the news."

Tony nods. "Obviously. Well, I'm not sure if I should tell you. You could be a reporter or something with a concealed camera."

"I swear on the name of my father, Domingo Montoya, I am not a reporter, and you will reach the top alive."

Tony stares at him for about three seconds before bursting into laughter, cold air fogging in front of his mouth. "Alright, alright, I like you, I get it. We, uh, had a bit of a spat."

He nods knowingly. "Yeah, why do you think I was shopping so late? My husband and I got into one, too."

Tony stares at him.

He nods, smiling. "Yeah, you heard me. Gay rights in New York are the best, right? Anyway, we were fighting about our kid. Brilliant little adopted boy."

Tony smiles at him. "Well, I can't say ours is _adopted_…"

The man laughs. "Oh no, of course not. Anyway, what was yours about?"

"A lot of things, really… Risking lives, not trying to get ourselves killed, and…well, yeah, the boy."

Another knowing nod. "Yup. Fate brought us together tonight, I know it. If you don't mind me asking another question, what's he like?"

Tony frowns. "The child?"

"No, of course not, he's not born yet. Your husband."

"Oh, Loki!" Tony smiles, looking down at the ground. "Best thing that's ever happened to me, I think. Of course I've got Pepper, CEO of my company, and Steve, my best friend… But yeah, he's the best. You know, love and all that."

"Yeah? Tell me about him."

"I…really don't know if I should. I mean, I don't even know your name."

"Lenny McChilf," he says with a bright smile. "I promise I'm not going to tell anybody what you tell me. And if you still don't trust me, just tell me the good stuff about him. It's no fun at all to report on the good."

Tony nods, just letting himself gush. "He cares too much, which is the just the funniest thing in the entire world coming from the God of Lies and Mischief. He always makes sure I have enough to eat and enough sleep and all that. He gets mad at me when I stay up too late in the lab, just like any good husband would. His favorite color is green, which is so obvious it hurts. What is up with super villains and green? He just killed that magical bitch back from a year ago. Did you hear about that? Amora and Skurge?"

"The Enchantress and the Executioner? Yeah, I was there when Thor and the Hulk smashed Skurge."

"Yeah, well, Amora dressed in green too. I bet the next guy we have to take down is the Green Goblin or some other shithead. Anyway, he's got the looks, you know? I mean, lordy, if I had to end up with a man, I had to end up with the best looking one on the block, if you know what I mean."

The man laughs. "Naturally. Keep going, he seems brilliant."

"Oh, he _is_. I've hardly done a thing in the lab in the last five months because of this damn pregnancy thing—which is great, don't get me wrong, it's just very, very weird—but before all that he would always help me down in the lab! He's got really small hands for such a tall guy, and he could reach in and just grab whatever I needed for something. Of course he could also snap his fingers and whatever I was working on would put itself together, but hey!—not the point.

"He really likes hanging out with Black Widow, probably because she's the most like him. Maybe not in background or anything, but they actually have a very similar personality… I'm not sure how I see it, but I do. And he and Hawkeye pretend to hate each other, but I'm pretty sure they're the next closest in a very, very odd way. He doesn't really like animals, but he's fine with it when I call him a cat. He loves his son—you know, the eight-legged horse—more than anything in the entire world, and that's half of why I know he's going to be such a great father to this little guy when he's born.

"He really hates cake, but he loves pie. He doesn't like his Jotun form, but he's okay with the whole deal whenever he's got the disguise on. Sometimes when I'm asleep or out doing something with Pepper or Steve he sneaks down to the lab to work on stuff with Bruce…he must love the lab almost as much as I do, because I know that he's actually kind of scared of the guy. He totally beat him up when he was in his Hulk form back during the war—er, alien invasion. We call it the war—I mean, we as in all us Avengers and our…boss." He has no idea what he's supposed to call Fury to someone of the general public. "Not a very appropriate title, really, but I suppose it doesn't matter.

"He likes sports a lot more than he lets on to, especially football and basketball. He's the best ping pong player you will ever meet in your entire life, and good _lord_ is he flexible! I've stumbled in on Captain America giving him a boxing lesson before, he does meditation with Bruce, yoga with Hawkeye, he paints Black Widow's nails, he wrestles with his brother Thor, and apparently he plays video games with Pepper when I'm not around. He's got something he does with each of them."

"What does he do with you?" Lenny asks, completely mesmerized by Tony's explanation.

Tony grins. "All of the above. Except he never painted by nails… And we don't do very much of it now. Except the yoga part. You have no idea how much those damned pregnant lady classes can actually help you out."

Lenny laughs. "He does those classes _with_ you?"

"Oh yeah, every one of them. It's insane."

"He really loves you, then."

"Good lord, he better fucking love me. We just had this whole deal about it."

"About love?"

"Long story, but yeah, it was part of the fight we had."

"Want to tell me, or is that too much?"

Tony turns and blinks up at the sky. There are no stars. Just lots and lots of clouds. "He killed Amora today to save my life because she was going to kill me. Long story short, he completely risked his life for me and the baby. I got mad at him for it because I was afraid that I would have to live without him. I…really shouldn't have. I should have just thanked him. I know that, but I didn't listen to myself. Maybe it's a pregnant thing. Maybe I'm just an asshole…"

"Trust me," Lenny says, pulling the gloves off of Tony's hands. "It's a pregnant thing. Now you get back inside and you get him back, yuh here? He wants you up there with him after what happened today. He could have lost you, and you could have lost him. You should stay with him."

Tony smiles, unwrapping the scarf from around his neck. "Thank you, Lenny. For letting me vent and even rave a little bit. Do you want your coat back now? It was my plan to just grab a cab and just go back to the mansion, but I guess I'll have to go back to him after all that."

"Nah, keep it. Scarf too. It all fits you perfectly."

And he's walking away before Tony can thank him again. So Tony turns and goes back inside, running his fingers through his hair too man times as he rides up the elevator. Just as he's about to open up Loki's door, an arm wraps around his waist and spins him around to lead him back the way he came.

"No, don't go back in there," Loki says, holding Tony close to him. "I told them you'd have two fits if they didn't let me go, and it would be very awkward if they found that I was lying."

Tony blinks up at him. "How did you know where I was?"

"What, you think I just let you go outside all by yourself? I'm one protective motherfucker, as Fury would say. How do you think you got that coat?"

Tony frowns. "You gave it to Lenny?"

Loki breathes a laugh. "I _am_ Lenny."

Tony stops in front of the elevator. "You _bastard_! You let me pour all of my feelings out to some stranger that was actually _you_?"

"I wanted you to feel better. I was going to tell you."

Tony just doesn't have enough energy to get into another argument. He pushes Loki into the empty elevator and pushes him against the wall, the god molding his body over Tony's stomach to kiss him.

"I'm sorry," Tony says in disconnected syllables as they shamelessly tongue-fuck in the hospital elevator. At least they're alone. "I love you."

"I love you too," Loki says in the same way, one hand tangled in his hair and the other just rubbing his hand on every single inch of Tony's stomach that he can reach through the coat.

Tony reaches out to his waist, but the elevator dings, and they instantly leap into a presentable position and walk out of the front building. "We couldn't have just teleported inside?" Tony asks, leaning against Loki, their hands connected.

"I'm still too drained for it," Loki says, pulling out his cell phone. Took a bit for him to get used to it, but now he uses it quite regularly. "Besides, my magic somewhat interferes with the hospitals technology. I don't want to accidentally get anybody killed when I could have taken a few more steps and they would have survived."

Tony smiles up at him. "You have changed so much since the war."

"Gagged with metal and humiliated in front of Asgards and Jotun's alike. It happens. Nat? Yeah, of course it's me. We're standing out front. How long?" Pause. "Geez, you don't have to break the speed limit _that_ badly." Pause. "Oh, police lights? Brilliant, see you in three minutes." He pockets his phone and smiles down at Tony. "The best part about being best friends with the assassin that used to survive on breaking rules is that they'll still do it for you."

Tony snorts. "She still does it anyway."

Three minutes later a police car skids in front of the hospital, Tony and Loki slipping into the back.

"So how'd it go?" she asks, smiling at them in the rearview mirror.

Tony shrugs. "Not _horrible_."

"Leave the lying to your husband, Tony. What went wrong?"

"We got into a very loud argument at two in the morning, probably disturbing countless guests, and Tony stormed out. So I dismissed myself as a patient and pretended to be someone else to keep him safe and managed to keep him from going past the front of the hospital. Also he got a coat that fits him perfectly. How was _your_ night?"

She smirks, over halfway back to the mansion with her lights still going. "Sex first, then movie, and you interrupted us eating ice cream." She parks and three of them get out, her pressing a button the FOB so that the police car morphs back into her preferred black convertible viper. Basically her car is a Transformer, but it just turns into other cars. "It's rocky road. Want any?"

"No thanks, we're going straight to bed," Loki says. He looks down at Tony. "We're going to have to stay down here tonight."

"Will it interfere with anything?"

"You mean living forever? Nah, we'll be fine. It's just one night. We'll pop up there to change our clothes in the morning."

"Oh, by the way, got a little party of news for you guys," Natasha says before they go their separate ways. "Miraculously, all of the presents made it, and they were moved to your bedroom. Don't go into the rec room for the next week, because we'll have S.H.I.E.L.D. agents crawling in and out of there at all hours of the day and night. So if any are walking around, you _don't_ get to throw them out. Don't contact Agent Hill because I actually all but broke her heart because she was at the hospital to see her boyfriend that's an agent with her and, um, he sort of died today because some of the agents got to the Skurge/Thor/Hulk thing before it was over. Also Fury is going to be here at two in the afternoon to speak to you two, so you have twelve hours. Have fun!"

And she's off.

Tony frowns. "I don't see how that's a party.

**XxX**

"What I don't understand," Loki says to Steve and Pepper as he shoots a head off of one of the Flood, "is why the public still thinks that we owe them the tapes from the baby shower. I mean _really_. We were attacked, I went to the hospital, we could have lost every single last one of the Avengers, and they still want to see how it went! Aside from the fact that Fury took everything so he could run through it, there is no way we'd give it up anyway. I don't want the entire world to know that I totally missed my biggest threat, nearly let her kill my husband, and then absolutely _destroyed_ her body. Who on earth would want to actually _watch_ that?"

"I'd watch it," Clint says, hanging from a pull-up bar by his legs.

"You _did_ watch it," Natasha says, playing ping pong with Bruce.

"HA _HA_, RUN MY LITTLE MARSHMALLOW FRIENDS, RUUUUN!" Thor booms. He must have gotten the power that allows him to go after the ghosts instead of them going after him in Pac-Man.

They're all in the rec room again, everything cleaned up and no S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in sight. It's December 24th. Christmas Eve. And the Avengers aren't doing anything but sitting. They love it. While it's normal for most of them to just do whatever the hell they want, Natasha and Clint are off for the next two weeks. Earlier that day they did some big public thing, all of them suited up except of course Tony, riding around and each putting a decoration on the giant Christmas tree. But now they're all just relaxing, having a grand old time. The only one of them who won't be here tomorrow is Thor, because he's going to take Jane, Erik, and Darcy up to Asgard for Christmas Day. They told each other they weren't actually going to go out and get any gifts for each other, but Tony did anyway.

Of course, Tony's gift are actually just sending them off with one of his credit cards and letting them get whatever they want because he knows they're not going to bankrupt him, but that doesn't count. They probably expect it anyway. But, actually, Tony did get Steve, Natasha, and Loki something specific. He got Bruce to help him make a blackberry pie that's right now sitting in the fridge (because Loki really does like pie an awful lot), he got Fury to give him Phil's old Captain America cards for Steve (after washing off the fake blood, of course. He's not stupid. He had seen real blood before, and none of that red dye stuff was going to fool him any), and he went out with Loki to get something for Natasha. Something she'd pretend to hate but quick go play with as soon as they turned their backs. The most expensive perfume in the store, a saucy number made from a black mamba snakeskin pattern, and strappy golden high heels to match the golden snake that sits where a broach would.

When she pretends she doesn't like it she'll say something about how she's the Black _Widow_, not the Black _Mamba_. Spider, not a snake. But then she'll go off with Clint to try it on anyway before sneaking out the windows with him in the only suit he would ever dream of wearing to go to some nice restaurant that costs too much for a Christmas Day dinner.

"Brucey-kins, can _I_ play yet?" Clint says, swinging around on the bar to face him and Natasha at the Ping pong table instead of the video game on the TV screen.

"We're almost done," Bruce says, serving one of the most beautiful serves Tony has ever seen.

And he's seen a lot of serves tonight. Loki played Steve and Thor earlier, completely leveling them. When Natasha beat him she played Pepper, and now she's still playing Bruce. He might actually win, too. Tony sees everything from where he's standing, leaning against the wall by the elevator. Something's up and his body just doesn't want to sit down, so he took to standing where he could see everybody.

Clint sighs, swinging around onto a different bar until he's on the one closest to Tony. "Want to play—"

"If you ask me to play something that involves shooting arrows one more time I will tell Fury to remove every last one of these damn things off of the ceiling."

Clint rolls his eyes, using extreme stomach muscles to lean up and face Tony straight up while he's still hanging down from his legs. "I was going to suggest Jurassic Park III, actually. You know, guns."

"But that one is _short_."

"Well I'm about to play ping pong! I can't get myself going in something like Mario Party that takes three-hundred thousand years to play."

Tony rolls his eyes back at him. "Fine, I'll play, I'll play. Keep your arrows out of your quiver, geez." He pushes away from leaning against the wall, but that's about as far as he gets. "Oh lord."

Clint's about to swing away, but he stops. "What? Is Natasha showing Loki her new boob job?"

Tony's eyes widen, but not at what Clint's said. Something's happening. Something…something that he's never felt before…

"Whoa, wide eyes, sorry," Clint says, swing around until he's hanging from just one arm. "I was kidding, she'd never get a boob job. And she may be close to him, but she'd never show herself off to your husband, don't worry."

"Clint, no, no, that's not it," Tony says, taking a few steps back, leaning against the wall again. "I don't know what this is."

He frowns, dropping down from the rings completely. "Dude, you are making absolutely zero sense at all."

"I think…I think I may be…oh, ow, um, I think I'm going into labor."

Tony has never seen a hawk wear such wide eyes. "Uh…Loookiii!" he calls, his voice wavering slightly.

Loki perks up, pausing the game before he, Steve, and Pepper all look over at them. "What?" he says, eyes training on Tony. "If you're hurting my husband I'll hurt _you_."

"Uh, no, but we do need a hospital."

While Steve and Loki are still somewhat confused, Pepper gets it instantly. "Ohhhh my!" she says, jumping up. "Oh my oh my oh my. Everyone, together, now! Loki, he's going into labor!"

Loki is there instantly, wrapping his arms around Tony to hold him up. The others getting there just a second later, all of them reaching around until they each have at least part of themselves touching the magical god. They appear right smack in the middle of the emergency room, yelling things about pregnancy and labor and their names.

Tony doesn't really hear any of it. He is just having way too many feelings right now. Lots of pain, and there's lots of noise. And yeah, that's about it. Because he's going to give birth on Christmas Eve and no he does not have a vagina so hey there's this terrifying little thing called a C-section and that's _just_ the operation that Tony is going to need to have.

He hears something about having to go under for the whole thing, which he is totally okay with right now. And the last thing that he hears before he goes under is a little argument between Steve and Natasha:

"I'm going to be a _godfather_!"

"STEVE THIS IS NOT THE TIME JUST GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY OF THE CART OR HE IS GIVING BIRTH OUT OF DAMN FUCKING PENIS DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME."

"Sorry."

* * *

References: _"Oh _sir_," Jarvis says (the first thing he's said after all this time, too, b/c Loki told him to keep quiet for the cameras, and Jarvis always listens to what Loki says). "If I weren't a AI I'd be on my _fifthbag_ by now."_  
So I totally stole Jarvis' sentence from a British show called Red Dwarf. Totally my favorite fucking show. I grew up on the stuff, man. Anyway, the original line is: Kryten: _"Oh SIR. If I weren't a mechanoid I'd be on my FIFTH BAG by now!"_ So basically the same, but I switched out a single word. Yup.

End chapter/part A/N's: Yes, I killed off Amora and Skurge. No, they're not going to come back. They're really dead. No more big fights between them, though! It's all smooth out from here. Just had to have the villains to tie things over, obviously :P


	7. Part II, Chapter 4

**Part II, Chapter 4**

Beginning chapter A/N's: You get to meet Lidia and Daniela in this chapter! Remember from the very first author's notes, the two chicks we don't know that get together with Steve and Indio? Yup, you meet them in this chapter here :)

* * *

Tony wakes up who knows how the hell long later, all stitched back together.

"Oh god," he whispers, trying to get his eyes to focus. "I feel like a fucking fish that just got cut open and gutted before trying to be put back together. Do I _look_ like Humpy fucking Dumpty?"

"Tony, shut up and breathe," Loki says, coming to view above him, "so that you can hold your son."

It doesn't matter that it hurts at all. Tony's stomach is flat again (and stretched out…shit. He is definitely getting surgery for that. No way is he going to live forever with stretch marks. Loki will fix that in a snap) and he's got some super hot stitches going on. He's wearing one of those stupid plastic bracelets that you get when you go to water parks, but this is definitely not for a water park. It's because he's a hospital patient. He just gave birth.

GOOD LORD HE JUST GAVE BIRTH TO A BOY.

He scrambles wildly for a moment before righting himself so that he can take the child from Loki's arms. He can't remember the last time he smiled so brightly. Both of them. Good lord, he's holding a newborn baby. A little boy. Indio Erik Stark.

"Tony, you're crying," Loki whispers, pressing kisses to Tony's cheeks and below his eyes. "He's not that ugly. I mean, he's got your eye."

Tony would make a joke about that except for the fact that it makes absolutely no sense at all. "He's beautiful," he says. "What the hell does that mean?"

"A lot of things. Look at his ears."

Tony blinks up at him before moving one of his hands to finger lightly at the child's ears. "Lordy," he breathes. "They're pointed."

"We did know he wasn't going to be human," Loki says, kissing Tony's temple, "but you should have seen what the doctors thought. Our usual wasn't in, so some other guy got to do it."

"But you said he has my eye. What about his _eyes_?"

"You can't see them right now because he's asleep, but he has two different colored eyes. One is the same brown as yours, and the other is the emerald green I have in this human form. Other than the eyes and ears he seems human, but we'll find out a whooole lot of things in the next five years to prove _that_ wrong."

Right about then, the child stirs. It lets out the cutest little yawn Tony has ever seen in his life, one hand stretching out and his stubby little fingers flexing out. Tony sticks a finger into the grasp, a new smile lighting onto his face.

And then the babies eyes open. Yeah, one is brown, but green?

"Actually, that other eye looks pretty _blue_ to me…" Tony says, looking up at Loki.

Loki frowns, looking closer at the two little eyes staring up at them, bright and happy and _alive_. "No, it was definitely green," he says with a deeper frown. "Everybody else saw it, too. Natasha?"

They're alone in the room other than a couple of nurses, but somehow Natasha hears Loki's quiet little voice, coming in from outside and standing next to the bed as well. "Hey," she says. "His eye changed color."

"Yes, that's what I was wondering about… It was green, right?"

"Green as yours," she says, smiling down at the child. "Now it's as blue as Steve's. Huh."

That's when Indio has to be taken to the nursery. They don't want to release Tony because of the C-section, but one look from Loki and they just stay silent. Three spells later and Tony's stitches are out (one spell), the wound is completely healed (two spell, though there's a scar now, which Tony requested stayed), he's been un-number so he can walk around (three spell), and he even took away Tony's stretch marks (four spell).

They're waiting outside of the Maternity Wards nursery now, Loki wondering under his breath why they couldn't just keep their baby and leave right away. They'll all slip out the back of the hospital when they do get the child back (Pepper "let out" information that they'd be going to the front again, so the most there will be in the back is one) to get into the big ass van, since it's really the only car that will fit all of them. You know, they should decorate that… Yeah, it'll be a big family adventure as soon as Indio is old enough! Brilliant.

"I feel so light," Tony whispers happily in one of the chairs outside, swiveling his feet around. All of his friends are standing, allowing room for the other women who have just given birth to sit down themselves. And one of these such ladies leans over to Tony:

"Oh, _don't_ you?" she says brightly. "I can't _wait_ for my ankles to come back!"

"Yeah!" says another lady. "Mine too! They disappeared when I had eight million extra pounds going on!"

Tony lights up instantly. He has extreme similarities to these people. He would with Loki, but he was a horse, and it's just not the same. Not to mention he's too busy leaning against the glass to join in with them. "Oh, don't I _know_ it. And all just for miniature humans the size of our thighs!"

"But aren't they just _precious_?" the first lady says again. "And they're all ours!"

"I know!" Tony giggles, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Well, maybe not _all_ mine." He glances over at Loki, who's still brooding against the window. "He's a little anxious."

The two other ladies giggle back. "We can tell," the second one says. "But, I actually get the child all to myself! I'll never know the father. I had a sperm donor."

"Oooh," Tony and the first lady say.

She nods proudly. "Twins."

The first lady sighs happily, but Tony shakes his head. "Oh no, not for us. Marriage was weird enough, let alone _two_ children."

"Oh, of course!" the second lady says, reaching across the first to pat Tony on the cheek. "Best wait until you're _used_ to the whole ordeal before you even contemplate more. And you always have to be ready for the worst."

"Boy, do I know that feeling," the first woman says. "My first pregnancy I had a miscarriage."

Tony and the second woman gasp. "_No_."

"Yup," she says, nodding sadly. "My husband and I didn't cope very well for the first year, and we didn't try for another three. Finally got the courage up to do it again, though, and here I am!"

Tony smiles brightly. "Where's your husband now?"

"Oh, he's at work. Got to keep the income coming in, _especially_ with another mouth to feed."

Suddenly Natasha is standing in front of them, a sad smirk on her lips.

"Oh, Widow, hi," Tony says. "Guys, my husbands best friend, Black Widow. Widow, these are…" He trails off. "Actually, I don't know your names."

"Shannon Hale," the first woman says, dipping her head at both Natasha and Tony. She's slightly overweight, with red-ish-brown hair piled high on her head and frog earrings dangling about an inch. Fancy jeans and a fluffy top, though her shoes are for running. For someone who just gives birth, she's…well, she didn't let herself go. Tony didn't when he was out in public, but that was just to keep the ruse up. As soon as everybody knew he went instantly to sweats and slippers.

"And I'm Lidia Johnson," the second says, smiling brightly and giving a little wave. She's about as thin as Loki is, but not as tall. Baggy, worn out yoga pants, a thick long sleeve, also running shoes, and a beanie.

"Tony Stark, obviously," Tony says with a smirk.

"Yes, I'm Black Widow," she says, squatting down in front of them all. "But you can call me Natalie." (Tony manages to hold back a snort.) "I am Loki's best friend here, but even he doesn't know what I'm about to tell you guys." (Loki glances back at that, but shakes his head before pressing his face back to the glass. Tony will just tell him later.) "When I seventeen I got pregnant on a mission, but I got an abortion."

She says it so bluntly that the three listening wait about a second before gasping.

"_Nooo_," Shannon says as Lidia covers her mouth and Tony simply gapes at her.

Natasha nods. "Yeah, I was devastated. Both at the pregnancy and that I had to get rid of a perfectly good life. I'm actually against abortion, but I had to do it for my job. You know, master assassin and all that. I can't have any ties that can't take care of themselves."

"What about now?" Lidia asks. "Would you have one now? I mean, you're with Hawkeye now, right?"

"Yes, I am, but we're still never going to have kids. We can't. It would interfere with _both_ our jobs. I just…" She heaves a sigh. "Really wanted to get that out of the system."

Tony gets it now. Why she was so excited at the baby shower. It's because she's going to get to take care of a kid when she can't have her own.

Tony leans forward and whispers into her ear: "The father?"

"Dead," she says back. "You know me."

Tony nods. "Why'd you never tell anybody?"

"I'm a master assassin, Tony. We don't tell people our secrets."

Tony is about to open his mouth, but Loki perks up then, and Tony understands why because the door to the baby room opens. "Shannon Hale?" the nurse says.

While Loki slumps, Shannon all but leaps up, waving goodbye to Tony, Natasha, and Lidia as she follows the nurse inside. They won't see her again, because there's another door in the ward that you exit out of once you have your baby in hands. They've started labeling _much_ better now, what with all of the switches they always end up doing. Idiots. Good thing Indio has elf ears; there's no _way_ they'll get the wrong one.

"So, what are yours like?" Tony asks Lidia.

She gushes. "They're both girls, named Daniela and Alexandria. I even have their nicknames planned already! Danny and Alex, of course. Danny came out healthy and strong, but Alex is somewhat weak and will have to stay here for some extra time to make sure that she survives… Can't tell much about their appearance yet except that Alex's hair has a darker tinge to it, while Danny is pretty blonde. They have blue eyes like I do. What about yours? Are you releasing the name now? I watched the whole interview on the news. You have a really nice life."

Tony smiles brightly. "Thanks. And yeah, we're releasing it now. Indio Erik Stark. Erik with a K."

"Oooh, original, I like it. What's he look like?"

Tony chuckles. "Well, uh, you have to keep in mind that it's part extraterrestrial..."

"Oh yeah, I'm well aware that he's probably got laser eyes or fairy wings or something. I read the Norse legends, so I know that Sleipnir has eight legs and whatnot."

Tony chuckles, and he's about to give the whole description, but all of his friends but in instead:

"Well he doesn't have any wings," Natasha says, "and so far he hasn't shot us with any lasers, but you never know."

"His ears are pointed, like an elf's," Bruce says, "so he'll probably be as tall as Loki when he's full grown."

"His right eye changes colors whenever he wakes up from sleeping!" Steve says brightly. "Of course, he's only fallen asleep once, so we've only seen two colors, but still. At first it was the same emerald green as Loki's in his human form, but when he woke up they turned into that super clear blue that you and I have!

"But his _left_ eye is the same as Tony's are," Clint says. "Like a steaming cup of hot chocolate."

Everybody just sort of stares at the master assassin.

"What?" he mutters. "I've had some weird missions, okay? Being a make-up artist was hard work. Do you have any idea how many eyes I had to describe for the best eye shadow? My _word_."

"Hey, that was somewhat recent," Natasha says. "When you took Natalie Rushman's photos, right?" She glances at Lidia. "You know, my photos."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Tony says, holding his ands out. "_Hawkeye_ took those?"

Natasha rolls her eyes. "You _would_ look them up. He was the only one I trusted not to drool at me. And he didn't."

"At the time, at least," Clint says, leaning over to kiss her cheek (she stood back up when Shannon went into the nursery). "If I had to do it again we wouldn't get very far. I'd take you right there."

Pepper sighs. "Great. Now that the Stark's will have their hands full, _you two_ will be the ones we have to watch out for. Rule time! To everybody, _no cussing_. I don't care _what_ the case is, you will in no way swear in front of this child. Not even 'hell'. The words will be crap, heck, and darn. I know it's impossible, but I am in fact Aunty Pepper, and I am going to do all that I can to make sure that this child grows up _civilized_. Hawkeye, no weapons training. Black Widow, no stealth tactics. Steve, no weight training, but when he's old enough you're allowed to work out with him—_no dirty boxing_. Bruce—and you are the _only_ one I trust—no lab work. Tony, _none of the above_. And if he's straight, no playboy magazines. If he's gay like you two, no _Buns_. Loki…"

He glances around to look at her.

She sighs. "I don't even know what to say to you. No…throwing ice cubes at people."

Loki smirks at her. "Tell me one time I have ever done that."

"Well I can't name a time you _threw_ them," Clint mutters, looking down at a square-shaped scar on his arm. "But you _did_ jinx them to burn our skin. Thankfully I dropped one before it got to my mouth. Shi—I mean, um, gee-wilickers."

Loki chuckles. "They would only have burnt you. I would never hurt any of the others. You just happen to be a lot of fun to mess with."

"'Natalie," Clint pouts, "the small-headed Megamind is being mean to me again."

She smirks, leaning up to whisper something into his ear. Clint smiles, but Bruce (sitting next to them) gives a very disgusted face.

"You sure are loud for a master spy," he mutters.

Natasha just sticks her tongue out at him.

Tony notices Lidia giving all of them incredulous looks, but now she bursts into laughter. "Oh, you are all so _amazing_. Tony Stark and his little band of Avengers! Wow! It is such an honor to meet all of you, honestly. You have…" She giggles. "Quite the family relations."

Tony smiles at her. "Don't forget the adopted Grandpa Odin and Granny Frigga up in Asgard."

She laughs again. "Alright, alright, I have to know: what are you all going to be called?"

"I'm papa," Loki says without looking back. "And Tony is daddy."

"Aunt Pep, as stated," Pepper says.

"I'm Uncle Bruce."

"Godfather Steve, at your service."

"I'm god_mother_ Natalie." She'll of course be godmother _Natasha_, but that's a secret.

"I am UNCLE THOR!" the Thunderer booms, and Loki reaches around absentmindedly to put a hand on Mjölnir so Thor doesn't yank it out and bring half the hospital down on accident.

"Cousin Hawkeye, naturally."

"And I will be known as the nanny," Jarvis says from Tony's watch, appearing out as a hologram.

"Right!" Tony says brightly. "We also have a couple other friends who we like to make fun of. One is the grouchy next door neighbor and the other is the wicked stepmother!"

"Wow," Lidia says, giggling. "Who would have thought you all act like this? I mean, I just sort of assumed it's a public thing, since you and Captain America didn't get along very well at the beginning, and your husband was out to kill us all. It's amazing what you've all become."

They all smile brightly at her, but Steve gives the brightest smile of them all. "You look…familiar," he says, leaning against the wall beside her chair. "You've never been one of the women that Tony's brought home, have you?"

"Oh _Steve_," Pepper says, rolling her eyes. "Don't _ever_ ask somebody that question. Of course she's not! She's not at all his type." She turns to Lidia. "No offence. I mean that you're far too sweet to get mixed up with the likes of Iron Man in such a fashion."

Lidia gives a smile, though it's slightly weak. "Thank you." She turns to Steve. "She's right, I never did."

"Thank god," Steve says, smiling brightly at her. "I still think I've seen you somewhere though."

She nods, smile coming back at full blast. "I didn't think you actually looked at me, but you did. It was back during the alien attack. You saved me and at least a hundred other people from being blown up in a building."

Steve nods. "Yeah, yeah, I remember that! I knew you looked familiar."

She smiles back, like her biggest wishes have just come true and the world is going to be perfect for the rest of her life. "Small world."

Tony's about to tell them that they can stop flirting now, but the nursery door opens again. "Tony Stark?" the woman says.

Loki all but leaps, grabbing Tony's hand and pulling him inside. The others stay outside.

Quite a while later, signing papers and filling out a birth certificate, little Indio is tucked safely away in Loki's arms (Tony is dead tired and doesn't want to risk dropping him or something, so he'll take the papers—until of course he gets to Pepper, who will tuck them safely away for him as well) they get to go back out the same door they came in since one, they're the Avengers, and two, there are six others waiting outside for them.

When they come out, Tony expects lots of squeals, but everybody is silent, staring over at them with sad eyes. The only sound is Lidia, face in her hands as she shakes uncontrollably with sobs.

Tony looks at Pepper, who leans over and whispers into his ear: "Remember when she said that one of her daughters is very weak and has to stay here to survive? A nurse just came out and told her that that one passed away. She doesn't have twins anymore… Just one."

Tony's heart shatters. He's a parent, now. He doesn't know what he would do if he lost Indio. So he goes and sits beside her, putting an arm around her shoulder and holding her close. She collapses against him, sobbing against his shirt. He doesn't care, of course. He's got eight thousand others at home.

"Hey, hey, it's alright," he whispers, stroking her hair. "Let it out. All of it, right now. And then we're going to think of all the good things, alright? Everything that's good. We'll name every single thing off. Keep crying for now, it's alright."

She does for about eight more minutes, but then it finally subsides, and she begins to truly breathe.

"Thing number one," Tony says, "is you still have Danny. Daniela is still healthy and strong, and you get to take her home tonight."

"Thing number two," Natasha says, sitting down in the chair beside her, "is that you made friends. With the Avengers, no less!"

"Thing number three," Bruce says, "it's Christmas Day, and you still got more presents than some people get in their lifetime. The daughter and friends that we mentioned."

"Thing number four," Steve says, kneeling in front of her, "is we're not going anywhere."

Loki's jaw suddenly drops. "Tony," he says. "We still need someone."

Tony knows what he's talking about instantly. They still need someone to nurse Indio. They hadn't found anyone before, so Loki was just going to do it in his lady form. But now they've got Lidia, with enough milk for two. And she's nice, Steve so very obviously has a thing for her, and…lordy, it's perfect.

"Thing number five," Tony says, tilting her chin up to look at him, "is that Loki and I have a job position for you."

She blinks confusedly at him. "Wha-what does that mean?"

"Loki has the ability to shape shift, so he was just going to turn into a woman to breast feed Indio. But—and forgive me for talking about your breasts—your body as produced enough milk to feed two children, because that's what you had. Would you be opposed to living in the Avengers Mansion with all of us to feed our little boy instead of Loki? Because he really doesn't like being a woman, and we were never able to find anybody else."

She stares at him. "M-me? You all want m-me to breast feed your child?"

Every one of them nods.

She gives a sort of gasp thing, throwing her arms around Tony's neck in a hug, starting to cry again. Now they're tears of joy, though, and whispers of "thanks you" over and over and over again.

And they all wait until Lidia Katherine Johnson has her little Daniela Alexandria Johnson tucked safely into her arms before they sneak out the back of the hospital (Pepper and Steve go out the front to answer questions, telling everyone that the parents will be available for questions some other time), taking their Avengers van back to the mansion. It takes about five minutes for Lidia to sign the confidentiality paper (AKA the paper every one of Tony's employees have signed), and then their new lives begin.

One with children.

One with the most amazing family since ever.

One where sleep is but a dream, too… But hey, at least Tony got to remove the eight million extra pounds, right? And now they have a beautiful little boy.

And here Tony thought he wasn't going to get any gifts this Christmas.

* * *

End chapter A/N's: Probably the shortest chapter I have in the entire fic, yeah. Did you notice Lidia's initials? LKJ? It's those 3 letters in the alphabet backwards! :P

Right, anyway! This is the end of Part II: 8 Million Extra Pounds. Next up is the Epilogue: This is My Family, in which Tony gives birth and I steal a line from Lilo and Stitch and Indio is finally moving out. Enjoy ^-^


	8. Epilogue

**Epilogue: This is My Family**

Beginning chapter A/N's (and they're damn _long_…sorry, but you DEFINITELY WANT TO READ THEM): Okay, I _was_ going to actually write an entire Part III, in which we get to SEE Indio grow up…but I'm sorry, I got like a page into it and I was bored to fucking death. So I decided to just throw in an epilogue of him all grown up instead! So basically these notes here are everything important that's happened in the last twenty-one years of Indio's growth. There's like 5 lists… Here you go! (P.S. Basically all of these lists are followed by a "because why not", because why not? Whatever whatever I do what I want.)

* * *

Random important things:

**1.** Pepper gets married to Richard Parker guy in March (they waited so long because there was _tons_ of shit going down because of the birth), so now she's Virginia Parker. A lot of the time they live in Tony's Malibu home, but they spend even more time in Stark Tower. Thankfully Richard is totally used to moving around a lot for his job. Anyway, their son, Peter, is born 6 years after Indio.

**2.** Indio's room up in Asgard is reveled to the Stark's. Here's the description in Tony's PoV: "It looks like it was shrunk down. The bed, at least. It's a crib, with its legs stretching up higher into four-posters. The room is decorated in ice and rainbows, and Tony glances at Loki's face to see that even he seems okay with the clear reference to Jotunheim. Their son has to grow up to know about them, right? Besides, the truce is clear, and people in Asgard aren't quite as afraid of the Frost Giants as they used to be."

**3.** Steve is still the absolute worst with women (Pepper, Natasha, and Hill don't count as women anymore), so it took him until Peter's birth to make any "real moves" on Lidia, and they didn't get married until sixteen years after Indio's birth (so they've only been a legal couple for five years now). And even before they _were_ dating they still acted like they did apart from the kissing and holding hands and stuff. Steve helped Lidia do her hair in the morning and do her shopping and whatnot, and he was the absolute _best_ with Daniela. And of course he stays amazing at it as soon as they start dating and get married.

**4.** Tony and Bruce knock Clint out with some of that gas that Amora used (Loki managed to snag some when he woke up and the three science nerds—AKA Tony, Bruce, and Loki—have been producing more of it for S.H.I.E.L.D.) and put a tattoo of a red hourglass on his lower back, signifying that he's owned by Natasha. It took Natasha about a week to actually see it, but it took Clint like eight years. He was furious for about a week until he realized that, yeah, it's true, so he just let his anger slowly subside.

**5.** Before Lidia moved in with Steve she got Natasha's old room, and Thor also builds a room for her up in Asgard so she could be nursing Indio those first months. But she wasn't up _that_ often, because she's not supposed to live forever or anything. And now that she lives in Steve's room, Natasha's old room has gone to Daniela. Indio just keeps the room connected to Tony and Loki's, but since it's huge from the beginning they just make a new door and block off the one that leads into the Super Husband's bedroom.

**6.** The three science nerds _do_ create a hard light drive for Jarvis, but it can still only project from anywhere he's integrated into, so he can't just walk around downtown New York or anything. Tony has already created a lady friend for Jarvis named Katherine (after Lidia's middle name, and they call her Kat), so she's got a hard light drive too. And Tony got around to emotional feelings for both AI ages ago, so now they even have a designated bedroom made up for them, because good lord, robots having sex? That could break a few things, so they're going to need titanium everything. You know, since they can't actually feel anything it doesn't matter hardly what anything's made out of.  
**7**. Thor and Jane get married in a very traditional Asgardian wedding, and now she's living "forever" with him as well. They have three kids that we don't meet and that I'm not going to make up names or even ages because whatever. They just had that many in the last…oh…let's say fourteen years that they're married. I'm not picking a date for them, either. Haha.

**8.** Twenty-one years later and all of them have finally gotten Loki to just fuck his hatred of the Jotun form, so now he walks around in it 24/7. Clint calls him Megamind, Fury calls him Nightcrawler ("He's an old friend of mine. Just go with it, motherfuckers."), and Indio calls him "papa" as a child and "pop" as an adult (Tony is daddy/dad).

**9.** The Chitauri actually make it back into New York, a little stronger this time, by sending in spies and putting the device back together on the roof of Stark Tower. But that's okay, because now that the Avengers know how to destroy it. Not to mention Loki now being on their side, and Indio being old enough to fight with them (after Tony of course has a few heart attacks, but it's not his son's first fight, so it's not _too_ cardiac arrest inducing).

**10.** There are some other villains that break through too, of course. Hydra and Viktor von Doom and the Green Goblin (Peter's not Spiderman yet, but whatever) and Jim Moriarty (who took _forever_ to find even _with_ S.H.I.E.L.D.'s help) and the Weeping Angels and all that jazz, so for the past twenty-one years they've at least had something to do. (P.S. suddenly I'm seriously tempted to write a story in which Indio becomes really good friends with Moriarty before he knows that he's actually a bad guy and he actually helps him get together with Sebastian and oh gosh what am I even thinking.)

* * *

[EDIT] And things that have to do specifically with Indio! Yes, I _know_ they may be a bit much, but to be honest...it's just everything that Loki can do. Or everything that I feel he could do, anyway. Some of the things may not have been mentioned specifically in the story for our favorite-at-times god, but, yeah, that's just how I see it. If you think he's too cool that is not my problem.

**0.** Little notes first: he grows and develops a hell of a lot faster than any normal kid, and yeah, he's got a bunch of totally cool powers. We don't really get to see many of his powers since I'm just throwing in an epilogue, so I'm just writing them all down for you, too!  
**1.** Stops breastfeeding from Lidia after four months (the average is six months, if not longer), but they've all grown super attached to Lidia so she just keeps staying with them. And hey, now Indio has Daniela as a friend! And of course he grows up to fall in love with her, because why not.  
**2.** His first word was "god" at two months, and he could talk pretty normal at twelve months. His favorite word now is simply "cloud" (because why not?).  
**3.** But also, he's not a rebellious kid. He's allowed to do so much already and he absolutely adores his Superfamily that he's never really been one to try and do the opposite of whatever they say. He likes Natasha the best, and against everything that Pepper's said, by the time that he's five years old, he's just like Natasha in which he started training for all sorts of things at so young. They all keep it from Pepper, but of course she finds out a few years later and totally freaks out.

* * *

And these are all of his powers, because for having one human father and another an alien, he's pretty damn hardcore. And I'll put the age that he is when he gets them:  
**1-2.** Super hearing (thanks to the elf ears) and smell [3 years], but he can turn them off to be "normal" when he wants to [figures out how to turn them off at 4].  
**3.** Angel wings, the right gold and the left silver [6] (because why not)  
**4.** Those little dragon-like claws that grows out of dragons (and similar animals) wrists? I want to say spurs, but I'm not positive. Anyway, he's got them on both hands [9], and at [10] they find out that they're actually somewhat poisonous, so the three science nerds get together to create a permanent antidote for it.  
**5.** He can't teleport like Loki can, but he can as long as there's a connection. So he could have Jarvis call up Hawaii or something, and he can go through it and freak the fuck out of whoever answered the phone when he comes out of it [16]

* * *

And his **eyes**… Yeah, lots of that, too. Remember how they can change color? Well, he can't choose what color they are when he wakes up, but each different color has a different power. His brown eye (AKA his human eye) doesn't do anything, but all of the others ones each have a power. But he doesn't get any of the powers that come with the eyes until he's 12 (unless otherwise stated), but they do change color before the powers develop. Here they are in order of the rainbow (plus ones not in the rainbow at the end):

-Red: super strength  
-Emerald green: can climb up walls and across ceilings and stuff (so when Peter ends up getting his powers they can have one hell of a time)  
-Sea green: can breathe and see underwater [at age 3, so bath time was pretty fun when he had this eye]  
-Dark blue: can use the Jotun ice powers  
-Silver: can see in the dark [at age 9]  
-Bronze: levitation of objects, both living and not  
-Black: can use black fire like Loki to read people's minds, and once he's done it once it never goes away unless he takes it off again (and he has to have black eyes to take it off) [at age 10]

* * *

Okay okay geez I'm finally done. Those notes were _pages_ long on Word… Whatever that's what I get for skipping forward 21 years! Sorry guys. Anyway, onward! Enjoy the future :)

* * *

_21 years later…_

Tony wakes up in the Asgardian bed with both of Loki's arms draped over him. It takes him a second, but when he registers that he actually is awake, he remembers that today is really not a good day at all. Sure, he still looks forty-seven, but all of his friends don't. Twenty-one years later? Hell no they don't.

Of course Bruce is the only one that's _really_ showing it, but that's only because he's the oldest. Fury of course doesn't look a day older. Steve, Natasha, and Clint look mostly the same (Steve not looking older makes sense, but Tony has a feeling that Loki is secretly slipping Natasha and Clint de-aging pills or something). Hill and Lidia are the only ones that actually _look_ forty-something, and Hill will be retiring in about ten years or so, because she's going to attempt to create a real family by then. After her boyfriend died on the day that Amora and Skurge died, she's been dead set on it. It's just…taking a while. Then of course there's Indio and Daniela… Twenty-one years old and they've been dating for three years.

That's not the problem with today, though. It's that those two are moving out together. It's going to be weird not having his son and best friends step-daughter staying in the same place anymore. Indio always said that he'd probably just stay in the mansion with everybody else for the rest of his life (which won't be all that long in Tony's eyes, because he chose not to live forever so he could stay with Daniela), but he changed his mind.

But Indio's always been a weird child. As soon as he was old enough he went out and got a job, and then he saved up _big_ (that's plus his allowance, of course). He bought his own car, will be paying the rent for his own apartment, and he's even paying for the college he's going to. Not that he has much to pay for in that since he has a scholarship. He's just never been the type of person to mooch off of anyone, which is weird because pops (Loki) has been doing it for over twenty years and dad (Tony) has so much money…well, why _wouldn't_ you mooch off of him if you could? He would have been out at eighteen, but Daniela wasn't ready to go then, so he stayed a few more years.

She's got a job of her own, her own scholarship, and she drives around her own big ass motorcycle. She's got somewhat expensive taste in clothes and whatnot, but even in high heels and designer skirts she's still got more tomboy-ish tendencies than anybody else Tony knows. She rides her motorcycles, skateboards, participates in dirt bike races, and has one _hell_ of a mouth. She never did get into the whole attacking people thing (so she's never wanted a job at S.H.I.E.L.D.), so Natasha and Hill probably still outrank her on the "badass ladder", but she's gettin' up there.

Indio, though, is practically the woman of their relationship. He's sweeter than honey, and he only cusses when he's angry or he's hurt himself (he must have gotten that from Steve and/or Bruce, because as soon as he turned five everybody else started cussing again). 'Course he looks intimidating as hell with Loki's height and his two different colored eyes, and yeah, he's pretty buff too. But he wouldn't hurt a fly. Well…yeah he would. Swats 'em all the time. He wouldn't hurt a puppy, anyway.

But that's not the point. The point is, the Starks' son is moving into a neighborhood that Tony _doesn't_ know with his own money and his own _security system_. Sure, he's got a watch with Katherine programmed into it, but Indio refused for it to have any weapons! Yes, he's had training from all of the best, and he doesn't deny he's an alien superhero, and if the city needs him he'll be there before any of the others. (Target practice with Hawkeye, combat and gymnastics with Black Widow, fitness training with Captain America, ability control for his eight hundred thousand powers with Loki, and of course all _sorts_ of lab things with Tony and Bruce. Of course each of their things are very different considering that Bruce is "Dr. Banner" and Tony is just "genius". Lots of elemental type stuff with Bruce, a lot of taking things apart/putting things together and inventions with Tony. Oh and childcare with Thor—not taking care of children, but taking care of Thor) He's just so…_human_.

He and Daniela just want it to be as normal as it can be when it can. So, for one last bout of pure insanity, Tony's throwing a party (which no one outside of their Superfamily knows about; they'll take their own pictures and sell the good ones) for the two of them in the rec room. After the births of them (and then Pepper and Richard's son, Peter, six years later) they all used the rec room a _hell_ of a lot more. It's filled with most of his baby stuff still, as well. And if/when anyone else ever has kids, Tony and Loki still have all of the high chairs and car seats and whatnot, still in great condition thanks to Loki's magic.

"You're thinking too hard again, love," Loki breathes, pulling Tony deeper into his arms. "He's not even leaving the city."

Tony sighs. "I know, I know. I just…damn. He actually gave us _visiting hours_."

"No, he gave _you_ them because he knew you'd be freaking out so much. To think, _you_ ended up the protective one."

"Yes I'm freaking out! I'm only allowed over three days a week, and I have to leave by four in the afternoon."

"But you _are_ allowed over as early as you want."

"Oh, Lo', you know he didn't give me a morning time simply because he knows I'm not coherent enough to go anywhere until _ten_."

"Eleven."

"Eleven. Whatever. What about the others? Do _they_ have a visitation timeline?"

"Um…Fury does."

"Yeah, what are his?"

"…he has to call two hours in advance."

"Lordy. My son is closer to by _boss_ than he is to me. What a life."

"If it makes you feel any better," Loki whispers, "you're still _my_ favorite."

Tony grins up at him. "Think we can finish before the party?"

"Over twenty years of practice? Of course."

**XxX**

"Aw, no fun!" Clint calls from the ceiling jungle gym. "The party poopers are finally here."

Unlike Clint, everyone else in the room looks up happily.

"Took you long enough!" Daniela calls from the couch, where she, Indio, Pepper, and Bruce are all playing Mario Kart on the Wii.

"Hey, pops!" Indio calls as well, giving them a quick smile so he doesn't crash. "Heyuh, dad."

"CURSE THIS INFERNAL CONTRAPTION!" Thor booms from a corner, a Rubik's cube hopelessly mixed up in his hands.

Loki instantly goes over to play a game of ping pong with Natasha, but Tony just stands in the doorway a few more moments, taking it all in. The room's inhabitants now consist of him, Loki, Indio, Steve, Natasha, Daniela, Bruce, Clint, Pepper, Fury, Lidia, Richard, fifteen-year-old Peter, and Jarvis and Katherine in their hologramatic forms. With the others playing video games, ping pong, eighties things, and hanging from the ceiling, Steve is with Lidia and Richard setting up the presents, Fury is talking with Peter and Katherine, and Jarvis is making his way over to help Thor out. All accounted for. Indio's wicked stepmother is back running S.H.I.E.L.D. while Fury's here. Jane and Thor's three kids (_three. Fucking, Kids._ Good lord, Tony thought _one_ was difficult enough; they all have little powers as well, but they're not near as prominent as Indio's are because Thor is simply Asgardian. Loki is three things: Asgardian, a Jotun, _and_ a magician, plus Tony being human) didn't come, because each of them happened to all have some of their own things that they needed to do.

Yeah, this is the party. It's really something they're all usually doing, but that's what makes it fun. They're doing what they like to do.

Smiling, Tony pulls his camera out of his pocket and makes his way into the room to get with the memories. Fury flips him off in every picture he takes of the man, and Clint always makes a fishy face except in the one picture Jarvis takes via ceiling cameras of all fifteen of them. Fury still gives the bird, though, which is just fine with Tony, because that way he'll remember the man exactly how he is. Loki doesn't use his magic when he plays against Natasha, so Tony gets a video of the god getting his ass kicked in table tennis by a "mere mortal". And Steve and Daniela have a waffle eating contest that Daniela only loses by one, and Thor's face is the most adorable thing in the world when he finally finishes the Rubik's cube, and Indio and Peter dress up the back of Bruce's head with sunglasses and things to make it look like the front of someone. And Jarvis and Katherine turn into different historical couples and act out their lives like plays. And eight million other things they all do, taking pictures and videos and oh the _fun_ of it.

"Is it present time yet?" Thor whines.

"Alright big guy," Indio says, going over to him. "Present time."

Thor's face lights up the entire room.

Honestly, everyone's always treated Thor as more of a child than Indio ever was. He skipped right over that stage in which kids draw pictures and you have to lie to them about how good it is. It was either good and you told him so or it was bad and he only showed Daniela. They of course had to grow up being best friends simply because they were _always_ together (at the mansion, at the public school they begged to go to instead of homeschooling in fourth grade and all the way through high school, and everywhere else). When Peter was born they would play "House", pretending to be married and that Peter was their son (and that was way before they actually started liking each other, which wasn't until their sophomore or junior year). Some of the games they would even switch roles in which Indio was the mom, Daniela was the dad, and Peter was the dog. It was kind of weird, but at least they never had that problem kids have when they're scared of getting "cooties" from the opposite gender.

They all move the chairs around until Indio and Daniela are up front, the others are facing them, and the presents are in the middle.

"Alright," Daniela says, rubbing her hands together evilly, "which of you poor saps is giving us stuff first because of this party that Tony is throwing because he's freaking out?"

"Hey now," Tony says. "Do you have kids yet? No. Shush. Natasha has requested going first."

From the red wrapped boxes comes a pair of shiny leather pants for Daniela ("And they're extra stretchy for the next time a guy whistles at you when you're boarding past and you need to kick him in the face like I taught you how to.") and pair of brass knuckles for Indio that _apparently_ mean a lot between them.

"Natasha, you are _not_," he says, staring down at them, jaw dropped. His eye is emerald green today. Tony's definitely gotten pictures of him crawling all across the room. And it's appropriate, because now he has the eyes of both Tony _and_ Loki at such an occasion.

"Ohhh yes," Natasha says, nodding at him. "You better keep them _clean_."

"Lordy, I _love_ you. Thank you so much." (Yeah, he got "lordy" from Tony.) Thanks to Loki's influence he's probably closest to Natasha out of all of them, then Clint, then Pepper, then Bruce, and then Tony has no idea the rest of the order. He does know that he gets along with Fury even less than Tony does, though (sure, Tony likes the guy, but he'd never have him around if they couldn't just have sarcastic banter all of the time), and he's been trying to befriend Hill for the last seven years.

Steve gets them tickets to go see a monster truck show and tickets for a wrestling match (Indio may be really sweet, but he's definitely into stuff like that. It's impossible not to be when you grow up with some of the most violent/badass people in the country), Bruce gets them a huge picture frame that he's put together _full_ of pictures of all of them (he's really good with the whole memories thing), and Thor got them a giant stuffed octopus (both of their favorite animal, for whatever reason) and a box of pink marshmallows. Tony wasn't allowed to get anything over fifty dollars for each of them, so he just got Indio a fifty dollar gift card for their favorite restaurant and Daniela a fifty dollar gift certificate for her favorite store. And of course the other presents come; from the Parker's and Lidia and Fury and everyone.

Loki gives his last, and Tony can't help but notice how familiar they look. Each their own, a silver bracelet with…good lord. Thirteen different charms on them. Wow-wee. A T, L, S, N, C, B, P, J, K, F, a pepper shaker, a lily flower, and on the one Indio gets has a D, while Daniela's has an I.

Tony's eyes widen. Yeah, yeah, of course it's them. "I remember those!" he says brightly, looking up at Natasha. "You haven't worn yours in _ages_!"

"No," she says, "it got stolen about fifteen years ago so I had to active its self-destruction. I never got around to making another one until a few months ago. Your husband helped, and we made three of them—and here are two."

"Wow," Tony says, leaning against Loki. "That was before I called the meeting to tell all of you what was going on between Loki and I, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," Clint says with a snort. "The relationship all of us but Fury already knew about."

Indio chuckles. "You never were into the whole keeping secrets thing, dad. No wonder I don't have any of my own."

"Oh, you've got _some_," Daniela says, elbowing him lightly. "Like that one about—"

"Dude."

"Fuck, right, I suck ass at keeping secrets, sorry."

By that time the presents are all done, so they all just keep sitting around, talking about things they remember and bringing up stories from "the glory days", in which Loki was still a villain and Tony was still a playboy and Steve was still frozen. When Pepper was just the secretary and Bruce was all alone and when Natasha and Clint were out to kill each other but not really. Why Tony first created the Iron Man suit and how he was dying and why the new element is shaped like a triangle and how it tastes like coconut. How Natasha was an undercover agent and Thor tried his first Pop Tart and when Clint was totally rooting for the Thunderer to get his hammer. And the second most important story of all: when Loki started crushing on Tony after throwing him out of the window at Stark Tower.

But the most important stories of all are the things they say about Phil. The man that inspired half of Jarvis's human form, helped save Tony from Obadiah, didn't actually try to keep Tony in lockdown at his own home, and when he came by later he found the old Captain America S.H.I.E.L.D. that got Tony's contraption to sit at perfect level so he could stop himself from dying. The guy that was there for Thor, the man that was all but in love with Steve Rogers and never got to see that every one of his trading cards had been signed by his hero. Fury even tells them all about when he first hired him:

"He was insane. He used to live in Oregon, and something so big happened that even I was there. He wasn't supposed to be there, but he showed up out of nowhere, driving a green slugbug with tiger striped seat covers. He pulled out the most high tech civilian gun out there—without a license for it, I might add; he never did tell me how or where he got it—and took down almost half the enemy with minimal shots. When I asked him who the hell he was he told me his name, age, and that he 'just happened to be in the area, sir. There was trouble and I had to help.' I hired him on the spot."

"I was under him for a few months, actually," Clint says with a breath of laughter. "He was always hounding me to help with his aim or something. And yeah, he showed me his trading cards. Told me all about how they were vintage and how his biggest dream was to meet you, Steve ole buddy. Even as young as he was when he began he was obsessed."

"Wait, wait, wait," Tony says. "What do you mean 'as young as he was? I thought he didn't start till he was, like, twenty-five."

"Stark," Fury says. "He was fifteen."

Tony blinks and turns to Natasha. "What about you?"

"I was four, and Black Widow was created when I was twelve."

"Clint?"

"Six and a half."

"Steve?"

"Um…I started getting beat up at eight. Does that count?"

"Yes. Fury?"

"Twenty-four. One of the oldest. Hill started at nineteen."

Tony lets out a breath. "And I know Loki and Thor have been trained since their childhood, and I was insane with power and technology the moment I was born. Indio, you started at three thanks to your powers. Daniela, you and Steve started boxing when you were seven. Peter started hanging out in the lab with Bruce and Richard when he was two. Bruce has always been into lab work, and Pepper…well, nice filing job, anyway."

She rolls her eyes. "Thank you."

Tony just looks at all of them, eyes somewhat wide and brain rolling. Pepper's note in the diaper bag…they really _are_ all insane. Nearly all of them started the lives that they're still in before they were fifteen. They're all doing exactly what they want to do, and they practically always have been.

_This is my family_, Tony thinks, eyes crinkling into a smile as everyone looks away from him and keeps talking. _I found it all on my own. Well…Fury helped, I suppose, since he started the Avengers Initiative in the first place. But I got it here. Because I got together with Loki. And if I didn't do that Pepper wouldn't have been away to meet Richard, I wouldn't have gotten pregnant and therefore we wouldn't have Indio, Daniela, or Lidia. Everything goes back to me. Or is it Fury since he started the Avengers…? Naw, I'd rather take the credit for myself. So I found it all on my own. It is little and broken, but still good. Little because none of us have anyone else but those of us in this room, broken because Phil is gone and Hill won't accept us. But… Yeah. Still good._

Loki leans over and kisses Tony's hair. _"I love you,"_ he thinks into Tony's mind.

Tony smiles up at him. Maybe today is a good day, because no matter if words are uttered with magical floating coals or spoken through the mind or even through the mouth, they're going to be there forever. No matter how they're said, _words stay_.

_I love you too,_ Tony thinks back, and those words stay too.

_**THE END**_

* * *

Ending A/N's: Please excuse me while I steal Stitch's speech and totally make it my own. Told you I would! And…yeah. That's it, guys. That's the sequel. _Words_ _Stay_. I really hope that you liked it, and I'm sorry that I decided not to write about Indio growing up and everything… But ohmygosh I'm so sorry it was just so boring. I hope the epilogue sufficed! If you have any questions feel freeee to message me here or on my tumblr (_wishforthingsyouneverknew_)!

Thanks all of you so much for the amazing responses you gave to _Words_ and my idea of a sequel. Sorry for those of you who don't like mpreg, and sorry for those of you who DO like Lady!Loki.

I love you with the deep burning passion of a thousand suns, and I hope that you'll like this story as much as you liked the first one! Thanks for reading! Xoxo


	9. Bloopers

**Chapter Infinity: Bloopers/Take-Outs**

Beginning chapter A/N's: So, I had a whole bunch of ideas, but these are the ones that didn't stick while I wrote this. Some of them still would have worked, but I ended up doing something else. And, I don't know, I thought they were good enough or funny enough that I'd throw 'em in here! I mean, _Words_ got SUCH a brilliant response, and you guys all _really_ wanted this sequel, so I thought that maybe you'd like a little something extra as well! So, here are the take-outs and bloopers of _Stay_ :) [Anything written in brackets is an edit when it's within the stories. So, like, little notes to you guys to explain some things. Yeah! :P]

* * *

[**TAKE-OUT ONE** [this is a completely different scenario than what happened. It's one in which _Loki_ was the one who got pregnant, and the only reason he did was because of Lady!Loki. But I really don't like it when Loki is a girl, so I think how I figured it out is waaay better. This is right when the baby is born, and I go through the entire alphabet looking for a name. Indio Erik Stark still comes out, but I give out like eight million other ideas as well. I didn't want to stop because I was having too much fun going through the alphabet lol]

_8 Months Later_ [as in eight months after T finds out that he's pregnant. Yeah, I was just going to skip aaall of the in-between and give him the baby right away since I was going to have a part in which we watch Indio grow up.]

"Congratulations Mr. and at-the-present-moment Mrs. Stark," the doctor says. "You've given birth to a healthy little boy."

The pain in Loki's eyes melts away as soon as the baby is handed to him, his face lighting up so beautifully. "Tony," he whispers. "Oh my gods. He's so beautiful. Come here, come here."

Tony was coming over anyway. He leans against the bed and right in with Loki, staring down at their child. He really is beautiful, Tony has no trouble admitting. Cutest thing in the world.

"Wow," he says, a hand reaching up to caress the side of the child's face. "I'm a father. And you're…good lord, a mother. Wait until Sleipnir hears about this."

Loki laughs, a tear of joy trailing down his cheek (Tony doesn't care if he's a woman right now; he's still a man in Tony's mind, so he'll refer to him as "he" and "him"). "What did we decide for the name again?"

"Howard Laufey Stark?"

Loki glares at him. "Don't make me hit you."

"Oh come on, you know I'm kidding. We decided on something that didn't have anything to do with us, remember? Daniel Quincy Stark. Or was it Querty…" [Definitely the name of the computer in Veggie Tales]

Loki rolls his eyes. "Definitely not Querty. It has absolutely no ring to it at all. Quincy is right."

"Wait, wait. Do you think he'll take kindly to the nickname 'DQ'? Because I can guarantee that will happen at least once in his lifetime, and I don't think anyone will enjoy being called after a fast food joint…"

"Well, maybe if we call him that from the beginning he'll grow to love it. _Or_ that will make him hate it even _more_…"

"What about Jackson?"

"Daniel Jackson Stark? It seems sort of…forced, I think. Besides, 'DJ' is almost worse than 'DQ'."

Tony sighs. "Good point. Maybe Steve has an idea."

He looks at the back of the room, where both Steve and Natasha are. "You guys, get over here. We have need of you."

They come over, each instantly throwing out a name. "Stanley" from Steve and "Nathaniel" from Natasha. Naturally names that begin with their own letter.

"My lord, those are worse than ours were," Tony says to Loki. "Now he'll be called 'DS' or his first name will rhyme with his first."

"Well I kind of like the 'DJ' idea," Natasha says, arms crossed.

"And I have no idea what a 'DS' is," Steve says, nodding awkwardly.

Tony rolls his eyes. "Mark? No, shit, that rhymes with Stark. Um, Orlando? Hmm…I swear I know someone with that name…whatever. How about that? DOS sounds safe, yeah?"

Loki purses his lips. "Dumbass On Speed?"

"Oh my lord, Loki, nobody is going to think of that. Fine, something else. I'll go through the whole fucking alphabet."

"Tony, you really shouldn't be using such language in front of your child…" Steve says sternly.

"Oh, shush, he's not even an hour old yet. He can't even see straight. Now let me think. How about…um…Alex?"

"Dumb Ass Stark," Loki mutters cutely, peppering kissing over the nameless child.

"Fuck you," Tony says in the same way, kissing Loki on the cheek before pushing a finger into the baby's hand. "Barnaby? Lord, never mind. Chris? Chris could work."

"Daniel Can't Sleep."

"You know you could think of a bad acronym for all of these even if it does sound good, right?"

"Yes, I'm well aware. Keep going."

"Alright, well, next is D. Downey?" [Ha. Ha ha. I'm funny.]

"You must be joking."

"Trust me, I am. Erik?"

Loki purses his lips. "Actually, that ones alright…"

Natasha frowns. "Daniel Erik Stark?"

Steve shrugs. "I kind of like it."

"You should keep going anyway," Loki says. "But it's a possibility."

"Fredwardo?"

"Aside from the fact that that is the dumbest name I have ever heard, he'd be called Daniel Fucking Stark. So no."

"Aw, come on! I go by Tony fucking Stark all the time."

"No."

Tony huffs. "Gregory, Hiddleston, Indio, or Jarvis?"

"No to G, no chance in hell are we naming him after your AI, and what the hell even _are_ those two middle names?" [Hiddleston. Haha. I'm still funny.]

Tony shrugs. "I don't know, I rather like Indio. Quite a lot, actually."

"Me too," Natasha says.

Steve frowns. "I say you keep going."

"Kyle, Lenny, Paris, or Rockwell?"

"No to the first two," Loki says, "Paris is a possibility but no, and Rockwell makes him sound too…tough."

"And that's bad for a male _why_?"

"Just keep going."

"Tyler, I'm skipping U, Viper, or Weston?"

"Tyler and Weston sound alright."

"Okay, good, because Zachary sounds terrible with it and I'm not even going to try for X and Y."

Steve snorts. "Nice to meet you, I'm Daniel Yapping Stark."

Natasha chuckles. "Hi, Daniel Xylophone Stark, at your service."

They all burst into laughter, keeping as quiet as they can as not to hurt the babies ears, who Loki is still showering with little kisses.

"So we have Erik, Indio, Tyler, and Weston," Natasha says.

"Take Weston out," Steve and Tony say at the same time, smiling at each other.

"And I don't really like Tyler anymore," Loki says.

"So what's it going to be?" Natasha asks. "Erik or Indio."

Tony purses his lips. "Hey, I have an idea. Why don't we just drop Daniel altogether. He'll be Indio Erik Stark."

Steve frowns, Natasha presses her lips into a tight line, and Loki wrinkles his nose up.

So Tony thinks he's completely struck out until all of their faces slowly turn up into a smile.

"You know," Natasha says. "I actually like that one."

"Me too," Steve says, nodding."

Loki smiles warmly up at his husband before looking back down at their baby. "I concur."

"Then it's settled," Tony says, leaning down to press the lightest of kisses to the child's head. "Welcome to the family, little guy."

"Indio…Erik…Stark…" Loki muses quietly. "It's really quite pretty. You're sure no one will make fun of him for it?"

"He's the son of two celebrities, Lo'. There are some kids out there named Apple and Blue. Compared to them, it's totally normal."

Loki smiles. "Fine. Perfect. I love it. I love him. I love you. I can't wait until we get to show him his room. I hope he grows to like it."

"Oh, I'm sure he'll like it," Tony says, thinking back to the room they designed.

[And that's the end of that one! See, I took _some_ ideas from this whole thing. I just wanted to put it up because I make myself laugh XD]

* * *

**TAKE-OUT TWO** [this is a totally dipshit idea but it makes me laugh okay so I'm putting it in here but I'm definitely taking it out of the story because ohmygosh it's bad]

_Sixteen Years Later_ [as in Indio Erik Stark is now sixteen years old and going into his senior year of high school because he's smart and skipped a grade, but it's a new school so Tony and Loki are plotting against him]

"Tony, are you sure I can pull this off?" Loki asks, adjusting his t-shirt.

"Are you kidding?" Tony says, his Audi parked on the road outside of the high school parking lot. "You're over three thousand years old and you don't think you can pull off pretending to be a high school student? Come on, it will be easy. I'd do it, but I actually have work to do, not to mention the fact that I can't shape shift."

"But what if he doesn't like me? What if he thinks I'm a creep?"

"Then you enroll as a completely new student. It's not that hard. And it's just for the first week, just to see how he fits in. It's a new school, after all, and he hasn't caught onto us yet."

Loki takes a deep breath. "Fine. But when I get home you better be ready for angry sex. Tomorrow, too. And the rest of the days that I'm here."

Tony chuckles. "Yeah, I'll be ready. Jarvis, is anyone looking?"

"You have five seconds, sirs," the AI answers.

Yeah, Tony leans over and has a passionate kiss with Loki in his seventeen year old body, but he doesn't care. It's his husband, after all, and it's not like it's going to be a regular thing.

When they pull apart, Loki gets out of the car and swings his backpack over his shoulders, giving Tony a longing look before heading shyly in the direction of the high school.

Tony chuckles as he drives away.

**OoOoOoO **[whenever I put circles instead of X's, that means that the perspective has switched, so now instead of Tony's view it's Loki's]

Loki manages to put on a cool face as he walks inside, but his left leg won't stop shaking. He's a senior, because that's what his son is. Indio Erik Stark is seventeen this year, staring at a new school because he got kicked out of his last one. That's what happens when you're the son of Tony "Genius ex-Playboy Billionaire Philanthropist" Stark and Loki "God of Lies and Mischief". You get bumped up a grade because you're smarter than everyone else and you get into fights a lot.

Loki makes his way through the halls to his locker, the map he earlier read imprinted into his memory. And then heads out to look for his son, because who knows what trouble he's already gotten himself into.

When he finds him, he's actually relieved. He's being introduced to a somewhat alright looking group of seniors, telling everyone that his name is Erik. That's how it's always been in the Stark family. They've been calling him by his middle name since he was four, but Loki doesn't recall the exact reason as to why it began.

Sucking up his nervousness (he's never _been_ to high school before; he and Thor had their own education), he slowly makes his way in that direction. But just as he's about to get there, he's all but run over by a group of giggling girls.

"Sorry, sorry!" they say over and over again, pulling him up. "We're so sorry!" one of them says. "We didn't see you there, we're so sorry."

"It's fine," Loki says awkwardly, stepping away from them, holding back his urge to smite them. He's gotten used to adult mortals, but these ones are...immature and tiny. Clint should probably come back here.

They giggle again. "You're a new kid, right? Senior?"

Loki nods

They giggle again, fluffing up their hair. "You're really cute."

Loki gives the most awkward laugh he's ever given in his laugh. "Um…uh…thanks." And he turns around and walks away as fast as he can, completely forgetting about his son. He ends up in the library, leaning against a bookshelf and running his hands down his face. "I hate my life," he mutters.

"Hi!"

He yelps, leaping away from the voice to his right. It's a boy with two million freckles and a pair of hipster glasses, green braces on his teeth.

"Sorry!" the boy says, smiling brightly at him. "I saw you getting out of Tony Stark's car earlier. Are you his son?"

Loki curses silently to himself. "Um, no. Just a family friend giving me a ride."

The kids face falls. "Oh. Well, I'm Alec McQueen. What's your name?"

Loki blinks widely at him. "Daniel. Orlando. Simons," he chokes out. He really should have thought of a name before coming here. Damn. [Also, yes, his initials are DOS. The one Loki said Dumbass On Speed to.]

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Daniel. You seem...kind of tense. You're new here, right? You okay?"

Loki nods, pushing his fingers through his hair. "Yeah, I'm awesome. I just…um…gotta go." He all but runs past the kid, getting out of the library quick. That's when the bell rings, and he lets out a sigh of relief. He has all of the same classes with Erik, so it will be much easier getting to him.

He makes his way to the senior biology room, pinning a seat in the back of the room so he can watch Erik wherever he sits.

His son walks in eventually, still surrounded by the group he was with earlier. And to his horror, they come right up to him, the meanest looking one leaning against the table. "Hey, dipshit," he says, straight in Loki's face. "You're in my favorite spot."

"You have got to be kidding me," Loki mutters, standing up.

The group laughs as he goes over to a different spot, rolling his eyes. But, to the everlasting pride of Loki's inner-parent, Erik speaks:

"Dude, don't be an ass," he says, pushing at the bully's shoulder. "He's new, too, he doesn't know any better."

The bully glares down at him. "Stickin' up for the nerd, Erik?"

"I'm not a nerd," Loki mutters.

"Oh?" he says, turning to him. "New kid all by himself with an Iron Man t-shirt? Seem pretty nerdy to _me_."

Loki simply rolls his eyes again before continuing on to a seat.

"Whoa, whoa," Erik says, continuing on the conversation on his own. "Iron Man t-shirt?"

Loki looks up at him. "Yeah. He's my favorite."

Erik smirks, unzipping his sweatshirt to show off his God of Mischief t-shirt.

The bully bursts into laughter. "You have got to be kidding me. You're one of _them_?"

Erik turns his smirk to the bully. "Actually, Tad, yeah, I am one of them. My full name is Indio Erik Stark. Iron Man is my _dad_. So, if you don't mind, fuck you, and I'm going to go sit with the _nerd_."

Tad's jaw drops. "You…you're the Stark's kid? You don't look anything like your pictures!"

"It's called a haircut, _dipshit_," Erik says, walking past him. "Grow some better fuckin' eyes." And he sits down beside Loki.

Loki is the proudest dad in the entire world right now. His son—the rebel—is sticking up for the nerd. The last teachers he had to talk to never said anything about him sticking up to people.

"Hey, you know what I think?" he says.

Loki perks up. "Yeah?"

A smug, knowing look settles onto Erik's face. "I think it's kinda weird for a three-thousand-something year old to still be in high school."

Loki curses. "You have got to be fucking kidding me," he says. "How did you see through me?"

Erik smirks. "Dad tells Steve everything, and you tell Natasha everything, and you keep forgetting that I'm a lot closer to my godparents than you wish I was."

Loki sighs. "That's what we get for making them as such."

"Mmm, yeah. Also, if you tell dad that I'm wearing a God of Mischief t-shirt I'll tell him you were flirting with that group of senior girls that ran into you."

"But I wasn't—" The bell rings, and Loki stands. "Yeah, alright, deal."

"Excuse me," the teacher says. "Class is starting."

"So sorry, ma'am," Loki says, giving her a mock salute. "I'm leaving, don't worry."

"Leaving?" she asks. "You're not allowed to leave."

Erik coughs, and Loki turns around. "You're still seventeen," he says.

"Oh!" Loki says, looking back up at the teacher. "Sorry!" Snapping his fingers, he shimmers back into his true form (not the Jotun form, but his adult one). "Loki, God of Mischief and Lies, at your service."

The entire room squeals.

"So sorry to interrupt your class on the first day, ma'am," he says, twirling his Tesseract staff in his hands as he stands there in the same suit he wore back in Germany and the only one he's ever worn since. "Just checkin' up on my son."

The bully—Tad, was it?—stands up. "Do you even _own_ any other suits?"

Loki turns to him with a smirk. "Haven't you ever watched Men In Black, _dipshit_?" (He's never used that before. He quit likes it, really.) "This is the last suit I'll ever wear." And then he turns to his son, who has his head in his hands. "See you after school!"

Without looking up, Erik raises his hand to flip Loki off.

The god simply chuckles, shimmering away.

He appears at Stark Tower, where Tony and Pepper are working on a very important project (AKA Pepper is trying to get Tony to sign papers and stop drinking more Scotch).

"Hey, Tony?" he says, sitting down beside him at the couch.

"What? Back already?" Tony says, frowning.

"Yeah, um, I may or may not have just ruined our son's life, so I'm going to go home and start looking up more high schools, okay?"

Tony snickers. "Yeah, sure, alright. He saw right through you, didn't he?"

"Yeah, but only because Natasha told him. Also, ask him what shirt he wore to school when he gets home."

He frowns. "What? Why?"

Loki smirks, kissing him on the cheek before standing up again. "You'll see."

[Aaaand that's the end of that one! Like I said, a totally dipshit idea. Ha. Ha ha. See what I did there? Okay I'm sorry I'm done.]

_**Totally finished now bye thank you for reading I love you all so very, very much goodbye (insert lots of hearts here).**_


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